Assessment of dynamic pairwise separation benefits using an Airport-in-a-Lab concept

Today dynamic pairwise separations are considered the last evolutional step of research in order to alleviate the capacity reducing effects of wake-vortex-related aircraft separations. Within the L-bows project we employed DLR German Aerospace Center’s wake vortex prediction and monitoring system WSVBS to predict safe minimum separations between arriving aircraft pairs depending on aircraft parameters and weather conditions. Based on an actual parameter set the dynamic pairwise separation values may be lower than separations from other frameworks. One resulting potential benefit is the possibility to accommodate more actual landings per time unit or to reduce arrival delay if demand is kept unchanged. Compared to other separation rule sets the challenge in utilizing and assessing this benefit is the short forecast lead time of the crucial weather conditions. We developed an assessment of the potential benefits of dynamic pairwise separations using an Airport-in-a-Lab concept. The paradigm of the concept is to combine real world airport data and future concepts in order to demonstrate the benefits in a laboratory environment. The results as exemplary benefits in terms of average arrival delays and their translation into direct cost savings were showing a range of 25% to 43%. Thus benefits were measurable within the Airport-in-a-Lab scenario but their realization in real life will strongly depend on the specific weather situation at an airport and the underlying demand-to-capacity ration for arrivals.