Validation of the Flight Centric ATC Concept using Hungary as an Example

Kurzfassung

Flight Centric Air Traffic Control describes a new concept of airspace design and the way air traffic controllers work in an en route environment. The elimination of conventional sector boundaries and the associated change of air traffic controllers' working methods are intended to reduce the capacity bottlenecks of the steadily growing air traffic in Europe. The concept enables a more even distribution of the entire traffic volume among all controllers on duty, for example within one area control center, on the basis of a workload-based allocation. This even distribution and the elimination of the sector boundaries in turn lead to more capacity, both in the airspace itself and in the use of the total controller capacity. This means, that the same number of aircraft can be controlled with less controllers when applying the Flight Centric Air Traffic Control concept than in a sectorized airspace. In this paper, the latest research results collected within the framework of the Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research Programme are discussed. The focus lies on the Human-in-the-Loop campaign, which was conducted by the German Aerospace Center in cooperation with Frequentis and HungaroControl for the Hungarian airspace.