Air traffic management
all about delivering these benefits – it all adds up to a far more efficient way to fly.
The northern flights
FRA removed long-established routes in the airspace over the North Sea, Scotland, North Atlantic, Northern Ireland and a small portion of northern England – covering approximately 150,000m2
. This area accounts
for roughly one-third of UK airspace and is over twice the size of the UK itself – it can see up to 2,000 flights a day and covers around 80% of all transatlantic flights. The current area covered by FRA is managed through the Prestwick Centre on the west coast of Scotland, some 30 miles south-west of Glasgow. FRA covers eight operational sectors – a sector being the defined area within which a controller operates, enabling airspace to be divided up in a safe and efficient way. However, FRA does not apply to all of the sky managed by Prestwick Centre. Specifically, it is currently tied to airspace above a single defined flight level – Flight Level 255 (25,500ft and above) – for a number of reasons. “It’s not possible to do implement FRA at lower levels of our airspace, because of the complexity of aircraft arriving and departing from multiple airports,” explains Boulton. “There has to be an element of planning and order where all these flights are positioned for arrival to, or departure from, one or more airports.”
In the upper airspace, however, NATS has systems in place that enable its air traffic controllers to identify the trajectories of aircraft well in advance and can highlight the conflicts that may occur from aircraft flight paths intersecting, enabling controllers to plan early and ensure all aircraft using the airspace remain correctly and safely separated. “That’s where the systems are vital – to enable the controllers to pinpoint these conflicts and resolve them and make sure that the aeroplanes operate safely,” says Boulton. “In time, we’ll see that same type of technology implemented in the lower air space. But that’s not for many years yet.”
An environmental achievement FRA is just one of many changes that NATS will implement to help the UK aviation industry achieve a 15% reduction of its 2019 carbon emissions by 2030. By 2040, NATS is aiming to reach a 40% reduction, with the ultimate goal for the industry of net-zero by 2050. While new aircraft and engine technologies hold the greatest potential for CO2
savings, alongside
sustainable aviation fuels, they are still some years away. As a result, maximising airspace efficiency could play a major role in reducing the industry’s environmental impact, and it is a step that is being taken right now. FRA over the north of the UK is forecasted to deliver 12,000t of CO2
The four planned UK- wide FRA deployment zones, the first of which is in effect and covers Northern Ireland and Scotland.
“Over the period of a year, [FRA] would save 500,000 nautical miles of flight in terms of distance, which is obviously significant,” he adds. “It’s equivalent to about 30 flights per day between London and Scotland, in terms of the reduction of CO2
emissions. That’s quite a
significant contribution to our pathway to achieving net zero by 2050.”
The introduction of FRA in the north marks the first of four planned deployments across the UK over the next five years, and FRA should be fully implemented across the entirety of Europe by the end of 2027. The next area that will see FRA deployed will be over the west and south-west of the UK (FRA Deployment 2, as opposed to FRA Deployment 1 over the north). That change is on track to go into effect in March 2023, and will pair FRA above 24,500ft with systematisation to the lower network from 7,000ft up to 24,500ft.
The view from Europe However, FRA is far from just a UK-only project. Indeed, it could easily be seen as a pan-European achievement in many ways, with NATS working closely alongside Europe’s governing bodies over the course of its development.
reduction per year
– roughly equivalent to the carbon footprint of 3,500 family homes, according to Boulton.
Future Airport /
www.futureairport.com
“As you can imagine, there’s an awful lot of collaboration across the industry to achieve these significant changes in the way that we operate our airspace,” says Boulton, referring to the work NATS has carried out alongside the Borealis Alliance – a coalition of air navigation service providers (ANSPs) from Ireland, the UK, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Norway and Sweden. The group’s main focus is to deliver a seamless area of FRA across the entire area managed by its members, of which the FRA now in place over Scotland is but the first step in the UK. The reason behind this collaboration is not hard to see – as the area covered by FRA grows, so too do the benefits that come with it. Collaboration among ANSPs is vital for the successful roll-out of FRA across Europe, as air traffic control is, by its very nature, a highly collaborative process. The exchange of data between stakeholders is critical to the safe operation of air traffic – controllers
150,000m2
The area covered by FRA in the north of the UK.
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NATS
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