Nominal Flight Time Optimization for Minimum Delay and Fuel Consumption of Arrival Traffic

Nominal flight time optimization to simultaneously minimize both delay and fuel consumption of arrival traffic is discussed. In the arrival traffic interval management, the estimated time of arrival is refered to determine the arrival time of aircraft at a specific position, e.g. runway threshld, merging point. The arrival time is generally estimated by aircraft position and their nominal flight time to reach the position. In this case, the intervalcontrolled traffic behavior is also considered subject to the nominal flight time. In a fourdimensional trajectory operation, it is considered possible to reduce the time interval from the preceding aircraft to the minimum one without degrading the safety. Through arrival traffic control simulations using a flight trajectory that aircraft equipped with common fight management systems are able to fly along, it is clarified that a control strategy using the flight time reduction is able to achieve a delay free traffic with the near-minimum fuel consumption. It is also clarified possible to achieve such delay free traffic by applying the longer nominal flight time even when subject to the larger initial time error. In addition, the average flight time becomes shorter than that controlled by a conventional traffic control that only delays the following aircraft with a shorter nominal flight time. It is clarified possible to estimate the delay mean and standard deviation from the statistics of the traffic arriving at the top of descent. This mathematical estimation enables the determinations of the optimum nominal flight time to simultaneously minimize the delay and the fuel consumption.