How performance-based navigation can improve the efficiency and sustainability of ATM

Dieter Guenter, Senior Vice President, Aerospace, at TetraTech, shares his perspective on new guidance for improving operations.

Improving the performance of aviation is our constant mission. From ensuring efficient use of airspace to the smooth flow of traffic both on the ground and in the air. Increasingly, an important part of this is ensuring we manage the impact of air transport and safeguard sustainability. Together with ACI, CANSO has recently identified methods for tackling aircraft noise and created some helpful guidance material for aviation stakeholders and States.

The aviation industry is working hard to address the challenge of rising demand for air transport while meeting its sustainability goals. To that end, CANSO has been working with aviation partners including ACI, to address, minimise, and mitigate the effects of aviation noise on local communities, and optimise aviation operations.

New guidance material developed by CANSO’s Performance Based Navigation Workgroup and international contributors from ACI brings together extensive expertise and experience from across the industry, and highlights the role operational improvements like performance-based navigation (PBN) play in reducing aircraft noise and emissions.

In its new guidance material, CANSO and ACI address the benefits and challenges of PBN and highlight the noise management options it can provide local communities with.

For example, PBN procedures and operations allow aircraft to fly very precise lateral flightpaths and improved climb and descent profiles. The new guidance shows how, depending on the geography of where an airport is located and other elements such as the available equipage and redundancy, PBN procedures can be used to ensure arriving and departing flight paths avoid densely populated areas and thereby mitigate potential noise impacts.

Use of Performance Based Navigation (PBN) for Noise Management provides the aviation industry with a snapshot of lessons learned and good practices from recent PBN noise mitigation case studies. It may also be used to complement State requirements for stakeholder consultation and collaboration on aviation. It is therefore a must-read for all stakeholders seeking to improve aviation performance and deliver responsible operations, and I commend ACI and CANSO members for jointly developing this valuable document.

Read more about CANSO’s operations initiatives here and view the latest best practice.