The Network Manager Operations Centre (NMOC) has developed a wide range of scenarios to assess the potential impact of traffic increase during the UEFA EURO 2012 football cup. It will not tell you who the winner is but you will learn more about the impact that passion for football has on aviation.

Major projects and special events pose a significant challenge to the smooth operation of air traffic management in Europe. As such, they are part of the European Network Operations Plan that describes the operational actions to be taken by the Network Manager and its stakeholders, to respond to the performance targets set by the Single European Sky (SES).

The UEFA EURO Cup 2012 is, like any other international sport or cultural event, a special event that demands the close attention of the Network Manager and its experts to make sure that those who will be flying to Poland and Ukraine will experience it as a living dream.

How do we do that ?

The Championship is unique in that traffic demand – and more particularly the number of general and business aviation flights – will vary according to the nationality of those teams that win through to the next round. The final and semi-finals will have even more impact on traffic demand than the previous stages.

Detailed coordination between the Network Manager and the operational partners is essential to diminish the impact. The high level of cooperation and preparation at ATM network level started with the medium term, and will be maintained through to tactical operations.

The Network Manager Operations Centre (NMOC) in Brussels has worked closely with their Polish and Ukrainian colleagues to come up with the most plausible scenarios so as to anticipate the potential peaks in traffic.

They ran simulations covering all the group stages of the tournament. The 52 scenarios also included level capping scenarios for short-distance or domestic flights, preventing them from reaching the congested upper airspace.

The EURO Route Availability Document (RAD) published on the Network Operations Portal (NOP) is a major input for the ATFM measures. For this occasion, Ukraine will be using the RAD for the first time.

Airport data – a true added-value

The exchange of dynamic and highly accurate airport data with the European ATM network is key to improving network predictability and reducing delays. June will see the first increment of the Demand Data Repository Phase II, which will extend its services by providing airport slot data.

DDR Phase II will be a useful tool as each predicted flight will contain information such as the departure date, departing and destination airports, the Estimated Off-Block Time (EOBT), the Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA), aircraft operator, aircraft type, type of flight, and date information last updated.

DDR Phase II will contribute to improved forecasts and will support operations in the following areas:

• ATFCM operational planning
• ANSP and Network Manager pre-tactical refinements to ATFCM
• ANSP improved planning of ATCO rosters
• seasonal preparation & planning for special events
• aircraft operator flight planning and collaborative pre-tactical planning of ASM

The tactical phase

During EURO 2012, airport slot data will be monitored against filed flight plans for Poland to ensure that the filed flight plans, and hence the aircraft operations, are in accordance with the airport slot.

Flights that do not operate in this manner could have their flight plan suspended; this will help with the running of the airport by ensuring flights arrive when they are expected.

The benefit of first steps towards Airport-CDM

At Kiev Boryspil Airport the implementation of Airport CDM is well underway and the first step towards a full integration into the network has been made; the reception of landing times via Flight Update Messages (FUM) and the provision of (only ATC) Departure Planning Information (DPI) messages is now operational.

In fact, Kiev Boryspil is the first airport connected to the Network Manager Operations Centre as an “advanced ATC tower” airport.

Airspace design and sector configuration

By means of simulations, experts further investigated the regulations that could be applied depending on how the ACCs concerned configure and open their sectors. Some airspace redesign and level capping scenarios were also required to help mitigate the capacity limits encountered in Poland.

The number of aircraft in a sector at any particular time (“occupancy counts”) will be taken into account for the implementation of the regulations – as well as traffic growth factors, sectors capacities, configurations and flight exclusions.

For each studied day, the Flow Management Positions in Poland and Ukraine and NMOC have developed the best possible configurations applicable according to the traffic demand. Planning for the day of operations, they are helpful for rostering decision making.

The impact on neighbouring ACC’s after the implementation of the scenarios, in terms of traffic load compared to the initial demand, was also analysed.

Teaming up for a winning operational group

Success also relies on human support and good coordination. Ukrainian and Polish colleagues started coordination work with NMOC months ago, via the Axis Management team.

Teams from Poland and Ukraine will be joining the OPS room during the football cup. Their presence will support pretactical and tactical work on many aspects, using both local knowledge (particularly important as any problems are most likely to arise at airports rather than en-route) and also their language skills.

In Poland ATC operate using occupancy countsand the team present in Brussels will directly interact with tactical staff (Flow Management Position).

In Ukraine the Network Manager supported the aviation authorities and airport partners in assessing and simulating the runway throughput capacity at those airports that serve the tournament to help identifying what could be the possible maximum throughput.

The impact of the Championship will, of course, extend well beyond the borders of the host nations and here the Network Manager will play a critical role in managing the impact across the network as a whole.  In particular, valuable cross-border coordination has been set up with Munich, Langen and Karlsruhe.

Now all we need is the first blast of the whistle for an exciting EURO2012 !

 

EUROCONTROL press release