Terminal capacity

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ATM SYSTEM: A screen shot of Raytheon’s technology which is implemented at Dubai International Airport.

Robert Tod focused on the challenges of airspace congestion that are facing the industry at this summer's Airport Show in Dubai.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has a reputation for creativity and growth within many business sectors and aviation is no exception.

Emirates Airline's plans for the future depend heavily on Dubai International Airport and Al Maktoum International Airport at Dubai World Central (DWC) delivering the required capacity. The challenge within air traffic management (ATM) is to keep pace with that growth.

Runway capacities and the potential increase of the number of airports within the northern emirates is a key focus for industry professionals at present, as is quantifying the future plans for airport development within the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

The present airspace design within the Dubai Control Area and citing terminal airspace capacity inhibitors are key to investing in the future and it is also important to recognise the strategy of Dubai Air Navigation Services in overcoming the inhibitors.

One of the key components to terminal capacity is the runway utilisation and efficiency of associated airports within that airspace and how many aircraft can land and depart from those runways. Presently within the Dubai Control Area we have three airports, Dubai, Sharjah and Umm Al Qwain with transiting traffic to and from Ras Al Khaimah.

It therefore needs to be determined the maximum theoretical runway capacity of each airport in order to forecast when the terminal airspace will reach maximum capacity. Key to any forecast is the integration of all strategic plans for new airports and estimating what the total demand will be.

At present we know of the plans for Dubai and Al Maktoum International airports and we also know of tentative plans for the following airports: Dubai has dual runways and Al Maktoum International will have six runways planned. Sharjah is expected to extend to two runways, while Ras Al Khaimah will increase its movements due to flying training.

Umm Al Qwain has light aircraft and para dropping flights. Ajman may build a new international airport near Manama, but there is no demand forecast. Fujairah may relocate its operation either west of the mountains or further up the coast.

In order to increase Dubai International Airport's runway capacity it was decided to stagger the runways which is a system that has been phased in over the last two years. Air Traffic Services (ATS) are transitioning from single runway operations through dependent staggered operations to full segregated stagger mode.

In conjunction with this the airport has to manage the present arrival and departure peaks. This is being done by introducing the International Air Transport Association's (IATA) scheduling plan and we are at present in the data collection phase. In order to streamline the decision making processes, all facets of the airport operation are being driven through a master planning group.

In order to operate in a dependent or segregated runway stagger mode we need two tower controllers, one for the landing runway and the other for the departure runway.

To accommodate the two tower controllers we have had to refurbish the physical layout of the tower and this will be completed within the next few months. In the meantime we have managed to have a limited dual runway operation with a single controller but due to the distance of the ATC tower from the threshold of runway 30L we have to restrict operations to a single runway mode when using that direction.

To plan for the future it is important to examine how the terminal airspace design copes with existing traffic demand. Airspace movements in the last 10 years have doubled from 450 per day to 890 per day.

That is a 12% increase year on year over the last six years. It is expected that this growth rate will continue, which could bring us an average daily movement rate of 1400 per day by 2011.

There have been no airspace enhancements since 2001 mainly due to the rapid increase in ATC movements and the need for additional ATS support structure. However, Dubai ATS has now built a sophisticated ATM support structure.

This incorporates an Air Traffic Control (ATC) operations section, a safety and standards section, a training section with full radar and tower simulator support and a projects section that manages the implementation of equipment and procedures as laid down in General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) regulations. This now enables ATS to tackle future airspace design and efficiency.

The present design of airspace is through an inbound and outbound gate system to the Dubai Control Area. There are two inbound one way routes entering through the two main holding fixes at DESDI and BUBIN and four main outbound only routes through RANBI, MAXMO, RIKET and ANVIX. There is a two way route for traffic transiting from Dubai International to Abu Dhabi International Airport. But there are limiting factors to this terminal airspace design.

There are many military flying areas that are permanently closed to civil traffic. This restricts expansion, especially for the new Al Maktoum International Airport. The airspace is planned around RNP5 performance criteria that restricts the optimum SID/STAR routings.

There are many tall buildings that could constitute hazards to air navigation and could limit capacity and, as we get more environmentally conscious we may have to consider aircraft noise into the equation. The location of strategic holds is paramount to ATC efficiency within the Dubai Control Area and there are other airspace capacity inhibitors that will need to be addressed.

In order to achieve maximum capacity within terminal airspace the supporting airways route structure must be capable of supporting this. We can pump as many aircraft off each runway provided the adjacent unit and FIR can handle the traffic flow and capacity could be improved through the introduction of P-RNAV but the airlines and associated aircraft have to be able to comply.

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