Coordinated trajectory management for integrated control of airport and airspace operations

This paper introduces a method to incorporate en route flight operations to the integrated airport scheduling, under the forthcoming paradigm of trajectory based operations. A cost-based speed control, enabled by airlines' aircraft trajectory optimization, is used to demonstrate the capability of en route arrival flights for absorbing the downstream airport congestions. Compared to typical airborne holding, i.e., stretching flight path or using air holding patterns, performed in the low-altitude terminal airspace, a notable quantity of (fuel) cost reduction can be achieved via trajectory adjustment en route before approaching to the airport, in addition to the noise abatement near the airport areas. Results from a case study suggest that around 6% of the delay costs can be saved for the initial delay assignment, and this number further increases for the iterative delay updates to handle the trajectory execution errors.