Eurocontrol new flight-data processing system launched

Eurocontrol, the air traffic control (ATC) agency of Europe, has launched a new flight-data processing system based in Maastricht, the Netherlands. The new flight-data processing system has been designed to double the number of aircraft flying over Europe even while cutting flight time and easing congestion at airports.

Initially, the new system will control air traffic only over Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, north-west Germany, and eventually expand to all regions of Europe, an official of Eurocontrol was quoted as saying.

The new system is expected to be fully operational by 2025, Eurocontrol said in a press release.

Eurocontrol’s new flight-data processing system replaces the radar-based and radio-based system of the World War II-era that compelled aircraft to take longer routes, which cost around 4 billion euros ($5 billion) a year in wasted fuel.

According to Eurocontrol, the system based in Maastricht is meant to eliminate the need for aircraft to travel along “air lanes” corresponding to lines of ground-based radio beacons.

These “air lanes” have become the equivalent of aerial highways where flights are funnelled in at one end and then wait in line to land at the other, Eurocontrol said.

The new system, which uses the Global Positioning System (GPS) that tracks planes using satellites, will do away with dependence on the radio beacons.

In other words, in the new system, an air traffic controller, instead of placing a flight into an air lane, can choose from a wide variety of routes between airports.

Eurocontrol said that, by enhancing the number of flights in the air while cutting wait times over airports, the new technology can save airlines about 4 billion euros ($5 billion) annually in wasted fuel.

In addition, the new flight data processing system will increase safety and also facilitate “continuous descent approaches” – a technique in which aircraft essentially “glide down” to the runway from its cruise altitude instead of performing a series of step-down descents and speed changes.

The United State Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the agency that is responsible for the safety of civil aviation in the United States, is setting up a network similar to that of the Maastricht-based flight-data processing system.

The FAA’s system aims at replacing the outdated method of air traffic management in which planes move in single-file lines along narrow highways in the sky marked by radio beacons.

According to Eurocontrol, about 1.5 million flights are handled by the Maastricht Centre annually, which makes it the second busiest control centre after London.

The website atc-network.com quoted aviation experts as predicting that air traffic in Europe would double by 2030 – up from the current 10 million flights a year to 20.4 million a year.