Simulation Exercises for robust Flight dispatching solution under thunderstorm disruptions

Abstract

The development, implementation and validation of optimisation algorithms for robust airline operations that result in stable and resilient Air Traffic Management (ATM) performance even in disturbed scenarios are the overall goals of START. This presentation focusses on the validation part. The validation of the START robust airline operations is performed by comparing the performance of a reference and a resilient scenario under disturbed and undisturbed conditions. The reference scenario is derived from the traffic demand for two days in 2018, June 7th and June 10th with strong convective weather phenomena. The resilient scenario is built on the reference scenario but is prepared for more frequent planning updates due to changing forecasts of capacity shortfalls mainly caused by weather impacts. Resiliency refers to the intrinsic ability of a system to adjust its functioning prior to, during, or following changes and disturbances. Within the validation trials performed, disturbances are included by means of convective weather areas which are handled as No-Fly-Zones (NFZ). Validation of the START results is performed threefold. First, reference and resilient scenarios are compared, mainly focussing on expected duration of overall conflict hours of aircraft with other aircraft and convective weather zones. Second, real life departure uncertainties are added by means of Monte-Carlo simulations with different distributions. Finally, scenarios are resolved with conflict resolution algorithms above FL150 as far as possible. The presentation gives an overview of the validation results, showing an overall low but stable benefit for the adapted aircraft fleet (Star Alliance) of the resilient scenario, with no negative effects for the global scenario.