New ATC Procedures for arriving traffic

[kcockayne]

Anyone else hear the new NATS ATC arrival procedures story on BBC News at 1300 BST ? Anyone care to make their views known ?

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

I never heard it but look forward to....

[Dan Dare]

Report that aircraft will be in bigger holds, but at the same level. It's been tried before ("err, London there's someone in the hold at our level"), but a procedure was never written. Sounds like fun!

[Del Prado]

Report that aircraft will be in bigger holds, but at the same level. It's been tried before ("err, London there's someone in the hold at our level"), but a procedure was never written. Sounds like fun!

"What makes you think it's your level?"

;-)

[obwan]

Bit in today's paper about it. The graphic which accompanied the article showed 5 planes gaily whizzing around the hold and at the same level, cant wait to see it in action. According to the chief neddy its the future.

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

God preserve us all....

[2 sheds]

Sounds as if the NATS Management Emperor might have acquired another set of clothes - does it explain how the aircraft join the hold in the appropriate position? I thought that Point Merge was supposed to cure all problems?

2 s

[kcockayne]

God preserve us all....

On the face of it, HD, you've summed it all up pretty well. I cannot believe that what I understand of this suggestion comes as ideas from "active ATCOS", or that it will ever work in practice. I thought that "tunnels in the sky" was bizarre, but this appears to be even worse. The whole thing must have been dreamt up by management, or by someone who has not been near an ops room any time in the past 50 years !

[OldLurker]

Nothing on the BBC News web site that I can see, but you can listen to the item at www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0783ltr (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0783ltr), skip forward to time 06:49 (not sure if this works outside the UK).
It says NATS said "planes with passengers needing connecting flights would jump the queue" – how many flights into LHR and LGW don't have some connecting pax on board?

[DaveReidUK]

Transcript:

Air traffic controllers say they want to change the way in which aircraft queue to land at Heathrow and Gatwick, to give priority to passengers with connecting flights.

Laura Trant reports:

"The current stacking system works on a first come, first served basis. That's what air traffic controllers want to change. They're proposing aircraft queue in a bigger loop at the same altitude until the controllers call them in to land.

The National Air Traffic Control Service said planes with passengers needing connecting flights would jump that queue. NATS said they hoped the reduction in aircraft over one area would mean less noise pollution, and the current system was outdated.

Campaigners say there would be a rise in the number of residents affected by noise because the holding pattern would cover a bigger area. The proposals are part of plans to improve aircraft access to Heathrow and Gatwick. A public consultation could begin next year."

[Flying Wild]

and this is going to work how?

[Not Long Now]

What a fantastic idea. I can't believe we don't do it already. I think blue aeroplanes should get priority. Or red. Red's a nice colour. No, actually, hold on, purple ones, yes, purple for priority...

[Gonzo]

Is it possible that this 'linear holding' has been conflated by a journalist from Point Merge/tromboning, queue management and XMAN etc?

But no, it allows us to pour scorn on 'silly' management. Let's assume it's all true.

Why shouldn't we be trying to make holding at LAM a thing of the past?

[ZOOKER]

CAP493............10.2.

"Horizontal separation based on ATS surveillance system information shall not be used between aircraft holding over the same holding point".

[Gonzo]

MATS Part 1 in 'doesn't take account of future concepts' shocker!:}

[ZOOKER]

Gonzo..........
Holding Point. A specified location, identified by visual or other means, in the vicinity of which the position of an aircraft in flight is maintained in accordance with air traffic control clearances.

The best way to make holding at LAM a thing of the past is to reduce the number of planes using Heathrow.

You need to get out from the glass tower and get some approach and area radar experience under your belt.

The LAM, BIG, OCK, and BNN, holds give the area bods a fighting chance of dealing with non-EGLL traffic, and not whacking the planes that matter to you. Folks know where the a/c are, they're not bimbling about in the most congested/complex bit of Europe's airspace.

Imagine if I arrived as your new GM and suggested that EGLL GMC should taxi outbound a/c all over the place, instead of forming a nice orderly queue at NB2E or NB1?

[jackieofalltrades]

I once deliberately put two in the hold at the same level. They were at opposite ends of the racetrack, speed controlled, and never any chance of colliding. This was, of course, in the simulator during one TRUCE session, I would never want to do it in real world.

The LAM, BIG, OCK, and BNN, holds give the area bods a fighting chance of dealing with non-EGLL traffic, and not whacking the planes that matter to you. Folks know where the a/c are, they're not bimbling about in the most congested/complex bit of Europe's airspace.
I totally agree. Having that relatively small area of known holding airspace makes it a lot easier to get other aircraft past them.

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

<<Air traffic controllers say they want to change the way in which aircraft queue to land at Heathrow and Gatwick, to give priority to passengers with connecting flights. >>

Things really have changed since my day!

[DaveReidUK]

The best way to make holding at LAM a thing of the past is to reduce the number of planes using Heathrow.

In other words the function of a queue (in any context) is to act as a buffer between supply and demand where an asset (e.g. runway) has a finite capacity and you need to get maximum utilisation from it. There's no reason why aviation should be an exception to that principle, and it isn't.

Remove the ability to queue, and utilisation of the asset will inevitably be reduced unless you come up with the kind of cute solution to smoothing demand that currently seems to be beyond the capability of the European ATC network.

I don't expect the LHR stacks to disappear within my lifetime.

[ZOOKER]

Me too Dave, but I remain ever optimistic of the arrival of a technology-enabled "cute solution".

Or a couple of new runways.

[chevvron]

I once deliberately put two in the hold at the same level. They were at opposite ends of the racetrack, speed controlled, and never any chance of colliding. This was, of course, in the simulator during one TRUCE session, I would never want to do it in real world.

It actually happened years ago (maybe more than once). Fortunately both aircraft were Aer Lingus 737s; they spotted each other, chatted on company frequency, then told approach what they were doing! Similar callsigns, one had taken the level assignment meant for the other hence they both ended up at Bovingdon at the same level.
Being Aer Lingus, they were quite happy to carry on and saw the funny side of it!

[Gonzo]

Zooker,

I think I get out and around the company quite a bit due to the various activities I'm involved in, so I've got a pretty good idea of most of the future concepts NATS are working on at different levels.

If you turned up with that aim at my unit, I'd say well done for joining us in the 21st century, that's what we've been working on for years!

The ideal would be to eliminate holding at the holding point before departure, to have aircraft taxi to the holding area in their departure order, straight on the the runway and take off. Doesn't work at the moment, as we still need the same buffer mentioned above to get the most use of the runway. But that doesn't mean we're not working on it, to minimise the reasons that create the requirement for that buffer.

[Talkdownman]

Pre- 'Flight Level One Hundred' there was always the 'Binary Trap' in the hold, especially with a certain operator (not, in this case, Aer Lingus...):

FltNum 100 and Flt Num110 at FL100 and FL110, not necessarily in that order. Back in the seventies all those factors were present every morning and 'two at the same level' had to happen, and eventually it did...

[jackieofalltrades]

It actually happened years ago (maybe more than once). Fortunately both aircraft were Aer Lingus 737s; they spotted each other, chatted on company frequency, then told approach what they were doing! Similar callsigns, one had taken the level assignment meant for the other hence they both ended up at Bovingdon at the same level.
Being Aer Lingus, they were quite happy to carry on and saw the funny side of it!
That's brilliant. I hadn't heard that before, but it can certainly see it happening.

[jackieofalltrades]

In other words the function of a queue (in any context) is to act as a buffer between supply and demand where an asset (e.g. runway) has a finite capacity and you need to get maximum utilisation from it. There's no reason why aviation should be an exception to that principle, and it isn't.

Remove the ability to queue, and utilisation of the asset will inevitably be reduced unless you come up with the kind of cute solution to smoothing demand that currently seems to be beyond the capability of the European ATC network.

I don't expect the LHR stacks to disappear within my lifetime.
But isn't the national pastime of Britain to queue? Why eliminate that from our travels...?!?

[chevvron]

That's brilliant. I hadn't heard that before, but it can certainly see it happening.
I was still an assistant at LATCC at the time so it must have been about 1971.

[jackieofalltrades]

Certainly before my time then!

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

The captain of one of them rang in and when asked if he wished to file a report he said he wouldn't because "you fellahs are great".

[EastofKoksy]

As long as Heathrow continues to schedule more flights that it can realistically handle, even when everything is going to plan, there will always be holding. The present situation already benefits from speed reductions made in adjacent FIRs. The only question is where will holding occur if not at LAM?

[BigDaddyBoxMeal]

NATS are trying to solve a problem with a theoretical solution.

We all know that the actual problem is solved with a fair bit of concrete/Tarmac.

But UK Plc won't ever accept the actual problem/solution.

[zonoma]

There is a secondary problem, the "change it, but not over my land" brigade. Martin Rolfe, NATS CEO touches on this problem in a presentation he gave to The Royal Aeronautical Society last week and is reported upon here (http://nats.aero/blog/2016/04/summer-capacity-crunch-points-to-the-need-for-airspace-modernisation/)

[Jwscud]

Do NATS have a performance metric based on minimising holding?

I have noticed at busy times over the last few months when told "no delay" by Essex, one is frequently getting vectors and stepped descents that are equivalent to at least 1 lap of the hold and burning the equivalent 300kg of go-juice that our company says "statistically is not required at STN or LTN"

[jmmoric]

If we stick a camera up in the centre we could make it tower seperation....

[zonoma]

"no delay" in the London TMA means expect less than 20 minutes.......

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

<<that our company says "statistically is not required at STN or LTN>>

Ahhhh statistics - the answer to all. Maybe the people that write that ought to spend a while in ATC.

[DaveReidUK]

Do NATS have a performance metric based on minimising holding?

Yes, it's one of the metrics that contribute to the 3Di Score:

http://www.nats.aero/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/3Di_score.pdf

[EastofKoksy]

Zonoma,


This "secondary" problem could very soon become the primary problem. The NIMBYs have discovered Flight Radar 24 and are getting quite good at using social media to lobby/hassle/bully politicians and raise money for judicial reviews. I suggest there is a significant probability that any route changes planned as part of LAMP below 10,000 feet will not happen at all or will get bogged down by legal challenges for years.

[DaveReidUK]

The NATS website now has a link to an article from Saturday's Times, with the above title.

End of stacking as jets form orderly queue | The Times (http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/business/industries/transport/article4741266.ece)

It's behind their paywall, so only the first couple of paragraphs are visible:

Flights that have a large number of transfer passengers on board could be given landing priority under plans to reform Britain’s most congested airspace.

Air traffic controllers are proposing to abolish the stacking system over the southeast of England in which aircraft are made to fly in tight circles while they wait for a landing slot.

The alternative would have aircraft queueing in a “straight-line” holding pattern, which would enable controllers to prioritise specific flights at the request of airlines.

Martin Rolfe, the chief executive of NATS, the national air traffic service, said that it would mean that flights containing ...So take your pick - either we're going to see the end of stacking, or the future will bring those superstacks with multiple aircraft at the same FL. Or maybe not.

[2 sheds]

...which would enable controllers to prioritise specific flights at the request of airlines
Has this been properly thought out?

2 s

[055166k]

How do the crew/operator of de-prioritised traffic know how much fuel to plan?...they could be up there quite a while.....and it would mean that ATC are in a position to determine which airlines make a profit or loss in view of the tight margins in the modern world.
I sense a big increase in Fam Flights around the corner......worked for Concorde I'm told!!
Anyway...imagine a huge series of steadily decreasing semi-circles as far out as Swindon/Midlands/Essex/English Channel...everybody slows down a couple of hundred track miles out [don't buy fast aeroplanes...pointless] and be prepared for airport movement reductions because all the planes are in the wrong place. Only human skills and a readily available traffic mix in the conventional close-in stack system enable Heathrow to operate at almost 100% efficiency.

[ZOOKER]

Superb post, 055166k, - and many thanks to Gonzo, for the usual professional and measured response above.
I remember during my spotting days, seeing 17 at the 28R hold in 1973, about half of them were Tridents.

[pax britanica]

Like Zooker I remember long queus back in the days of tridents and at peak times the same procession of landing lights in line over west London duritn winter evening peaks.

Having been thriough a recent series of 'we want to look at changing the flight path ' consultations from NATS and HAL I think that as far as the south east concerned the answer is always going to be dream on. People know where the holds and approach/SID paths are even if they do not know the industry names and they are just not going to agree to any changes at all unless they reduce noise all over which isnt going to happen. Expanding the holds is going to be opposed by newly affected areas and many of these areas a re pretty affluent and have large proportion of professional peopel who can put a good case together. In my area out to the south west of LHR many of them are pilots and airline ops staff and they gave the NATS HAL folks a very hard time on detail and planning assumptions. So personally i think the tradition ATC welcome to London message of ABC 123 Good morning pickup the hold at YYY and expect... is going to be around for along tome to comke whatever NATS and the airport operators think or want .

Just out of interest do other London area airports use stacks or because they are all a lot further out than LHR , use speed control and vectoring?

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

<<ABC 123 Good morning pickup the hold..."

Novel phraseology!

The only other London area airfields with holds are, AFAIK, Luton, Stansted and City. Northolt traffic arriving via airways is treated like a Heathrow inbound and maybe held in the Heathrow holds.

[2 sheds]

How has this suddenly developed into "some airports have holding patterns and others don't"? What?


2 s

[zonoma]

2 sheds, because the question was asked!

pb/HD - The Farnborough clutch and Solent airfields now have a hold available, and Biggin Hill arrivals can use the City holds. Southend now has its own STARs so I can only assume these end at a hold.

The prioritising certain flights has been bumbling around for a few years and isn't as crazy an idea as you are all insinuating. Concorde jumped the queues for years, the concept proposed is exactly the same.

[kcockayne]

2 sheds, because the question was asked!

pb/HD - The Farnborough clutch and Solent airfields now have a hold available, and Biggin Hill arrivals can use the City holds. Southend now has its own STARs so I can only assume these end at a hold.

The prioritising certain flights has been bumbling around for a few years and isn't as crazy an idea as you are all insinuating. Concorde jumped the queues for years, the concept proposed is exactly the same.

I can't agree with you, zonoma. Concorde may have jumped the queue, but only twice a day. I simply cannot envisage a system where a/c routinely operate outside of their "natural" place in the sequence in a busy & intense environment. How are busy APP controllers going to do that ? And, upon what criteria would such a system operate - would we have to hold a "head count" to determine the order of traffic ? Or, will the order change depending on whether individual pax have a more "time critical" connecting flight than others ?
This is my main area of concern. With modern technology, it may be possible to have wider holding patterns & more than one a/c at the same level (facilitating the taking of a/c out of the natural sequence on occasion), but how on earth are you going to be able to artificially engineer later arriving flights into positions ahead of earlier arriving ones on a continuous basis; & on what criteria ? Surely attempts to do so are only going to make a smooth & efficient approach sequence & vectoring impossible to achieve without making some very bizarre decisions & a totally unnecessary & complicated traffic pattern ?
And then, there is the question of abuse of the system by some ATCOS who seek, for whatever reason, to put certain a/c first. I seem to remember this situation raising it's head at LATCC 20 or so years ago - resulting in the disciplining of the ATCO concerned. Is such an action now going to be condoned ? Or even encouraged ?
I doubt that it is "air traffic controllers" who want to do this. More likely top executives - who have absolutely no idea of what they are talking about !

[Not Long Now]

If the actual aim of any new procedure were to be able to prioritise certain aircraft, then this whole thing could be ignored. Simply tell us which one you want first, AS IT ENTERS THE FIR, and we can get it to the front of the queue. No need to block up loads of airspace with bigger holding areas. The problem seems to be, as asked earlier, what determines priority. If it's number of transferring passengers, then presumably weight of numbers means pretty much BA first and everyone else last. Again, if that's what is determined as required, then fine, but let's be honest about it. Then of course, which BA is most important? Gold card members, most transferees to routes with least other options, shortest time left for the one young child trying to get home before beloved relative dies?

On other views, as to whether vectors, speed reductions and the like are simply holding by another name, of course they are. It's just like saying point merge reduces holding. Point merge simply changes holding in 'traditional' holding patterns to holding in a different direction, curve, call it what you will.

Anyway, back to the catalogue "New attire for our glorious leaders"...:ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh:

[chevvron]

You're all forgetting a similar system has been used in New York for over 40 years although holds are rarely used.
Inbounds are vectored all over the place into an orderly queue. I remember when travelling Heathrow to Newark once, we were taken well north and west of NYC and eventually left hand downwind for the 29s.

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

<<Concorde jumped the queues for years>>

I must be unique in having put Conc in the hold many times!

kcockayne..... well said.

[EastofKoksy]

This is called User Driven Prioritisation. As we have seen, it makes a good headline grabbing sound bite for somebody's speech. This is just one of many concepts a lot of which are dreamt up by people who have little if any practical experience as ATCOs or pilots. They have the time and the money to do this which is why some daft ideas get so far!

[Jwscud]

To be fair, the Spanish have been masters of it for years - just watch Iberia and Vueling on busy days at MAD/ALC/AGP/BCN get vectored straight in number 1 around all the foreigners.

They also do the RT in Spanish so fewer people can figure it out!

Regarding holding then, so if I am approaching STN from the East, and get vectored south, north, overhead and approach final from the West, that improves NATS's scorecard whereas a far more efficient 1 turn in the hold at ABBOT doesn't, despite me having chucked the same amount of fuel out of the back on either?

[EastofKoksy]

To be fair, the Spanish have been masters of it for years - just watch Iberia and Vueling on busy days at MAD/ALC/AGP/BCN get vectored straight in number 1 around all the foreigners.

They also do the RT in Spanish so fewer people can figure it out!

Regarding holding then, so if I am approaching STN from the East, and get vectored south, north, overhead and approach final from the West, that improves NATS's scorecard whereas a far more efficient 1 turn in the hold at ABBOT doesn't, despite me having chucked the same amount of fuel out of the back on either?


Got it in one!

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

<<that improves NATS's scorecard >>

What on earth does that mean?

[DaveReidUK]

<<that improves NATS's scorecard >>

What on earth does that mean?

http://www.nats.aero/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/3Di_chart1.png

It's a shame NATS don't know the difference between "historical" and "historic". :O

[zonoma]

Not Long Now, you aren't far off the concept I heard a few years ago. BA want certain flights on the ground first, especially when they have been delayed. They asked if NATS could manage swapping landing slots from one of theirs to another that they'd prefer in first. The number of times the Geneva inbound requested to reduce speed as they had "lost the landing slot to Concorde", as I said previous, the concept proposed is exactly the same (and I think even had a limit on how many a day would be acceptable).

NATS have to think about their customers, one has asked them a question about priority which they can manage "in house" without affecting the order for any other Heathrow customers, and NATS are considering it. What's the issue?

[Not Long Now]

Precisely that! We have always been able to 'juggle' the order, and yes I too had many an occasion when a european got a sudden increase in delay as concorde hurtled past Bristol. My point was, why do we need a new procedure of lots at the same level in presumably much larger holding areas when we can already manage an order change with a bit of notice?
Perhaps I'm somewhat jaded post LAMP, which may, in my personal, non-NATS opinion, have more than a little something of the emperors new clothes about it.

[2 sheds]

In similar vein (corporate bullsh!t), I was always fascinated by NATS' announcements about delays that were attributable to NATS, with figures such as "an average of 9.8 seconds per aircraft". I did contact their publicity department to point out that that sort of statistic was meaningless, in fact an insult to the intelligence, and would it not be more pertinent to address the issues that caused a significant delay to the few aircraft. I also asked how the figures were obtained that contributed to this "average" figure. Despite several exchanges, their spokesman explained how an "average" figure was deduced (he meant "mean" of course) in a manner that I took as somewhat patronising, but was singularly incapable of explaining the origin of the constituent data or any supporting logic.


2 s

[ZOOKER]

That always fascinated me too, 2 sheds, and how on Earth have they found 3Di figures going back to 2006? The measurement was only 'invented' a couple of years ago.

[2 sheds]

It's a shame NATS don't know the difference between "historical" and "historic". http://cdn.pprune.org/images/smilies/embarass.gif


They are also using the global warming cheats' technique of only illustrating the top of the range rather than showing zero on the base line. And they connect the annual values which suggests visually that they can be interpolated mid-year when these data ought to be represented by a histogram, a bar chart.


All of which, including the "delays" fiasco, suggests that they need a proper statistician in their ranks.


2 s

[obwan]

2sheds

They've got one , the NATS head of safety is a "proper statistician"

[On the beach]

Of course, if the South East of England had a few more runways at major airports nobody would have heard of "holding".

As usual, because politicians are incapable of making decisions, a problem is created and a scapegoat is sought. Then a whole new industry of statisticians and consultants are needed to explain how not to solve the problem. Meanwhile, blame the controllers for the problem. :=

[zonoma]

You could give Heathrow another 2 (independent) runways and there would still be holding to ensure that all runways had maximum capacity all day.

But I will fully agree that the political decisions have a smell of very slopey shoulders all over them.

[DaveReidUK]

You could give Heathrow another 2 (independent) runways and there would still be holding to ensure that all runways had maximum capacity all day.

Yes, in fact it's a bit worrying to think that not all professionals understand that relationship.