Overview
EUROCONTROL’s 2013 Challenges of Growth Report “by 2035 more than 20 airports are operating at 80% or more of capacity for 6 or more hours per day … drives ATFCM airport delay up from around 1 minute/flight in 2012 to 5-6 minutes in 2035.”
Whereas social, economic and environmental constraints impede building new runways, secondary airports are hindered by technical, infrastructure and meteorological limitations from absorbing additional traffic.
EARTH unites key European aviation partners combining the right expertise and investment to address issues and drive deployment of operational and technical improvements to enhance infrastructure, increase traffic throughput whilst preserving safety and environment.
Aligned with the ATM-Masterplan, EARTH focuses on separation and procedures to improve runway and airport throughput considering wake-vortex, weather, environment and noise whilst taking account of different traffic demand, future aircraft capability and airport configurations.
Partners validate reduction of arrival/departure separations delivered through optimised runway delivery support tools and study new procedures designed to reduce environmental and noise impact whilst confirming increased runway throughput enabled by ground and on-board space-based augmented navigation systems including GBAS and SBAS.
Partners investigate independent rotorcraft operations, fixed-wing and helicopter non-interfering simultaneous approaches, on-board and low-cost ground technology improving access to secondary airports in low visibility, optimising single and multi-runway operations in mixed-mode and dependent runway configurations and enhanced terminal airspace operations through curved approaches.
EARTH supports the SESAR Deployment regulation and addresses European concerns on environmental sustainability, reduction of noise and fuel consumption and brings low cost improved access to regional airports making regions economically attractive with potential for new jobs.