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Old 4th Mar 2019, 15:02
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Denti
 
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That paints a somewhat more rosy picture than is reality. Many of those approaches are APV Baro approaches, the number of airlines using them is extremely small. Quite often it is Swiss and/or Air Baltic with their A220, but not with any other type. Apparently the A220 is equipped for that, the rest of airline usable aircraft is not (yet). And then there is small airports without any airline service at all. Therefore it might have some use, but mainly non-commercial ops and the approaches were introduced in a desperate attempt to lure in some more traffic which hasn't really worked.

Does LPV have any commercial viability? Sure, it could have. But the reality is, the infrastructure in many parts of europe, especially middle and western europe, is simply way too good with widespread ILS installations There are quite a few more ILS approaches available than LPV approaches. Pretty much the same thing that hampers GBAS introduction as well. The airline drop down box is quite telling by the way, there is nearly no major european airline listed using any of the approaches. The biggest is probably EasyJet, and if you check them out it is only a planned operation that is not in any way current operation. In fact, easyJet is not approved for any LPV approach or any approach with a more restrictive RNP than 0,3. Not even RNP AR in cases where it would really make sense, like for example Innsbruck where special training is required anyway. Heck, they cannot even use the low vis ILS in salzburg due to lack of training capacity but that is another issue entirely.
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