CDM - Fuel Efficiency or On Time Performance ?

It is always a challenge to address matters so many talk about and so few?really?understand !

But let's give it a try, hoping some people dare to go beyond the second paragraph, rather than googling what CDM stands-for.

Back in 2012, ICAO, for the first time, proposed that in specific?circumstances (demand > capacity) fuel efficiency (rather than on time performance) should be set as air transport TOP PRIORITY !?

For those who never actually understood?what ICAO′s proposed? COLLABORATIVE operation means, I suggest a visit to ICAO Doc. 9971 (Manual on Collaborative Air Traffic Flow Management)??

"GDP (Ground Delay program) is a tactical ATM process where aircraft are held on the ground in order to manage capacity and demand in a specific volume of airspace or at a specific airport. Among others, GDP aims at minimizing airborne holding."

So, people may either like it or dislike it, but that does not change what COLLABORATIVE operation is.?

CDM should be neither mandatory nor seen as the only way into the future, but rather as an option to prioritize cost effective (rather than ontime) operation.

It's pretty much like deciding what time to leave for a long weekend. One may decide to leave as early as possible to anticipate the arrival or rather monitor traffic on WAZE and depart when lower traffic jam is expected.?

No right or wrong - just choices. The only impossible thing is to choose both !??

Understanding?that is essential for any air transport community, considering CDM implementation.

Going one step further, as CDM proposes to adjust demand to capacity, it is wise to make sure capacity has been expanded to its maximum possible limit, prior to squeezing demand.

Air Navigation Service Providers have clearly understood the message and airspace capacity has been long expanded by various means - reduced vertical separation, performance based navigation, etc.

Unfortunately, that was not the case with airport operators, as the airport privatization process evolved?worldwide.

Private concessionaires, typically managed by professionals with solid expertise in airport passenger terminal have historically focused on optimizing landside operation (AODB, RMS, FIDS, CUPPS, BHS, etc.), while costly?physical expansions have literally become the sole means of improving airside capacity.

Readers don′t need to trust my words, but rather turn their attention to numerous recommendations published by ICAO and CANSO, which have been systematically?neglected in regions such as Latin America.?

• The air Traffic Control Service at an airport extends throughout the maneuvering area? but no specific instruction relating to such a service covers the Apron. Therefore an Apron management service is required. (ICAO Doc. 9137)
• An advanced surface movement guidance and control system (A-SMGCS), therefore, is expected to provide adequate airport capacity and safety (ICAO Doc. 9830)
• The surveillance service of A-SMGCS provides airport traffic situational awareness through the position, identification and tracking of aircraft and vehicle, presented on the controller and airport operator display (ICAO GANP ASBU-B0/2)
• The Controller will be provided with a short term conflicting alerting tool (A-SMGCS initial alerting service) that monitors movements on or near the runway and detects conflicts between an aircraft and another vehicle as well as runway incursion?(ICAO GANP ASBU-B0/3)
• Implementing a ground surveillance program and equipping all vehicles with ‘transponders’ significantly enhances the airport’s situational awareness. Comprehensive surveillance, in conjunction with a surface conflict detection tool, significantly improves airport capacity as controllers can focus on tasks related to the efficiency of ground movements (CANSO′s Implementing Air Traffic Flow Management and Collaborative Decision Making)

As demonstrated above, at certain regions, such as Latin America, best practices recommendations for improvement of airside capacity have been historically ignored, resulting in airports operating way below their maximum airside capacity.

Some international Air Traffic Flow Management units - namely the FAA (United States) and Eurocontrol (Europe) have adopted COLLABORATIVE operations, thus evolving to Air Traffic Flow and Capacity Management services, which incorporated?ICAO′s proposed paradigm: "fuel efficiency?rather than?on time performance?should be set as air transport?TOP PRIORITY".

As time went by, the adoption of COLLABORATIVE operations in USA and Europe resulted in side effects on the surface of their airports, which required further interventions.

With the aim of addressing such side effects, the FAA and Eurocontrol have developed new airport operational concepts (ConOps) - Surface CDM (S-CDM) and Airport CDM (A-CDM), respectively.

Surface CDM and Airport CDM are then pretty different operational concepts, designed to provide airports operators in USA and Europe, with easier integration to existing Air Traffic Flow and Capacity Management services.

Neither Surface CDM nor Airport CDM (which have not been described in this Article) have been designed as generic airport operational concepts and they make no operational sense detached from their wider??Air Traffic Flow and Capacity Management program.? ?

So, there is no way out ! Any regional air transport community considering the adoption of CDM (Collaborative) operations, will need to face the one-million-dollar question:

Fuel Efficiency or On Time Performance ?? ? ?