Assessment Technique of Continuous Descent Operations using Real Life Data

Kurzfassung

A new Standard Arrival Route (STAR) to Frankfurt airport named DIXAT has been recently developed to provide a possibility to perform continuous descent operations as from the top of descent, in a high-density traffic environment. Consequently, it was considered a suitable candidate for evaluating airspace users’ compliance to the published profile. As the DIXAT STAR has been in operation since October 3rd, 2024, we were able to assess its impact by analyzing two years of traffic data - one year of data preceding the introduction and one year of data thereafter. The data from the two timeframes was compared using multiple metrics, including how often and how accurately the new STAR was flown. This procedure not only allows to identify fully compliant flights, but also helps to identify most constraining altitude restrictions that might need reconsideration in future procedure designs.