Is limited delegation of separation assurance promising?

This paper presents an initial evaluation of the concept of limited delegation of separation assurance to the aircraft. The proposed concept relies on a key element – the “flexible use of delegation” – allowing each controller to select the most appropriate delegation level for each situation. Two classes of application are considered: crossing and passing in en-route airspace and sequencing in terminal areas. This initial evaluation has been set up to collect feedback from controllers and pilots, and to assess the operational feasibility and potential merit of the concept. The overall feeling can be summarised by “promising with a great potential”. This concept would allow an increase of controller availability. In addition, the flexible use of delegation would provide flexibility to use the method under different conditions – traffic, airspace, practice level – and would also enable a gradual confidence building in the method. It has been observed however that the non respect of the applicability conditions of the method could result in an increase of workload and communication. The upcoming step will be a “quantitative” experiment with the objective of evaluating expected gains.