Alumni

In the past decades, the air traffic growth has resulted in increasingly complex situations involving more aircraft simultaneously. In order to guarantee safety is maintained within the increasingly crowded airspace, new solutions are expected. In collaboration with the LVNL, an Inbound Traffic Support System interface was developed. The goal of the interface is to visualize the possible solutions of an area controller’s task of merging aircraft towards a restricted waypoint in the current work domain, such that the impact of decisions made can be foreseen.  By showing the affordances of the work domain, the display keeps the air traffic controller as the active decision maker rather than issuing advisories.

Graduated: October 2019 

As of today, the aviation parties at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol are connected to the European network managed by Eurocontrol NMOC (Network Manager Operation Centre) through its local Airport CDM (Collaborative Decision Making) process. Within the Dutch aviation industry, many stakeholders are involved in the air traffic process, of which three of the main stakeholders are KLM, AAS and the LVNL. Each stakeholder can influence a certain part of the air traffic process, for which they create their own planning. Other parts of the air traffic process, over which a stakeholder has no control, are influenced, and planned on, by the remaining stakeholders. Since the air traffic process is a continuous cycle all stakeholders involved carry dependencies on one another, which also influences the planning each stakeholder makes. To succeed both the overall air traffic process and thus the stakeholders’ individual process, a collaboration among stakeholders is required. The goal of this research is to determine which planning inefficiencies may arise as a result of the different points of interests of the stakeholders within the Dutch aviation sector. By determining these inefficiencies, it can be researched how these can be eliminated, which could eventually benefit the capacity problem. For the purpose of this research the focus will primarily be on KLM flights.

Graduated: August 2019

In this thesis research, dutch aircraft noise model (NRM) calculations are compared to measurements to analyse the aircraft classification used in the model. To do so, a new implementation of the model has been set up to calculate with LVNL trackdata and NOMOS measurement data. First, the classification approach is analysed as prescribed, which shows clustering of aircraft types when compared to measurements. After, the theoretical input data as prescribed for the model is assessed and replaced by real data for each type specific. This leads to improvements of the model calculations when compared to measurements and shows that aircraft-specific flight-information would improve the model significantly. Concluding, it is shown that aircraft noise models strongly rely on the quality of the input data. Current input data shows certain mismatches with respect to reality, resulting in differences between calculations and measurements. However, the calculations can give valuable insights in the effect of operations on the overall noise exposure.

Graduated: July 2019

A new Arrival Management system, called Advanced Schiphol Arrival Planner (ASAP), was implemented in 2018 to regulate the arrival traffic flows at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport (AAS). ASAP aims to be an assisting support tool for the Approach Planner (APLN)  to monitor and safety merge inbound traffic flows in the Dutch Terminal Control Area (TMA). To validate the implementation of ASAP diverse analysis have been run. This work describes some recent insights and findings regarding the performance and interaction between users (ATCs) and ASAP. Particular attention is placed to establish the moment and type of interaction between the different users. The performance of the tool was evaluated using four main performance indicators; Expected Approach Time (EAT) adherence, slot adherence, holding ratio, influence of APLN.

Graduated: July 2019

According to Eurocontrol,  in 2017 Schiphol Airport was the airport with the biggest inbound ATFM delay of all major airports in Europe. One of the reasons that could cause the inbound ATFM delay is the so called ‘bunching’ effect at the border of the Dutch airspace. The objective of this research is to determine if the encountered planned bunches at -3-hour planning phase has an impact on the airport slot planning. This research focusses on the airport slot declaration and the planned demand based on the last filed flight plans, covering a period from the 25th of October 2017 till the 27th of October 2018. The analysis  contains 254,000 arriving flights in both winter and summer season. The analysis determines to which extent the bunching occurs in the airport slot declaration, and at the border of the Dutch airspace. The results reveal that bunching are present in the pre-planning phase within the airport slot declaration and is caused by the skewness within the airport slot-brackets. The analyses render similar patterns in which overdemand occurs within the time-brackets. The subsequent relationship between the airport slot planning and air traffic demand is around 48%, within the assumptions and limitations of the research. This means that 48% of the flights which are planned in a period with overdemand within the airport slot allocation, also tend to arrive in a period with overdemand at the border of the the Dutch airspace.

Graduated: June 2019

Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is the airport with the most airport Air Traffic Flow Management (ATFM) delay in Europe in 2017. One of the causes of the ATFM delay is that airlines do not adhere to their allocated airport slots. With providing insights into deviation between flight schedules or flight plan and airport slot, causes of deviating to the airport slot are identified. This research is done by means of analysing the deviations to identify the characteristics of the deviations. In addition, interviews with airlines and a ground handler and literature about possible causes are used to provide insights. The main findings are that ~ 3.3% of the flight schedules deviate from the airport slot. The deviation between flight plan and airport slot is around 67% of arriving flights. This deviation of flight plans means that the estimated in block time (EIBT), deviates more than 5 minutes from the airport slot. Both in absolute amount and relative percentage, general aviation and cargo airlines are the business models that cause the most deviation between flight schedule and airport slot. An agreement between the general aviation ground handlers and the typical business of cargo are the main reasons for the deviation. The full-service carriers and low-cost carriers cause in absolute number, the most deviation between the EIBT based on flight plan and airport slots. If the EIBT, based on the flight plan, is earlier than the airport slot, more than 90% of these arrivals are planned earlier because of schedule buffers.

Graduated: June 2019