A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/1067228
George Bush Intercontinental/Houston Airport – The month of November was the first complete month EoR operations IAW 7110.65 para. 5-9-7. Nearly 350 EoR operations occurred. Denver International Airport – A Human-In-The-Loop (HITL) test plan is currently being drafted in preparation for trials at Denver TRACON next spring. The test plan will assess the effect of varied aircraft eligibility and traffic levels on the utilization rate of EoR operations without the use of advanced merging and spacing tools. The tests will be focused on DEN and the traffic will be generated/scripted based on a representation of an actual traffic day at DEN. The purpose of the simulation is to determine the impact of varying eligibility levels on the utilization of the downwind approaches and their impact on the operation. Success will be measured by how many RNPs cleared. PBN East – The past month, we worked on NEC ACR and VORMON projects. We helped support the implementation of the Florida Metroplex on Nov. 8. People from our team were at ZDC, ZJX, and ZMA helping and observing. Many lessons were learned from observing that we have already started to incorporate into our NEC ACR project. ZDC ran some ISIMs the week of Nov. 26 to look at traffic flows prior to our first Pref Routes meeting. The ISIMs provided ZDC with data on traffic flows they may need to modify. ZDC would like to shift the PHL and CHS traffic from one sector to another to help balance flows. The original date for NEC ACR implementation was Jan. 30, 2020. In researching the date further, it was determined that the 2020 Super Bowl is in Miami a few short days afterwards. There was fear of making a large change to the NAS a few days prior to such a big aviation event. Therefore, after talking with all of the facilities, it was determined to publish the routes on Oct. 10, 2019, (NOTAM N/A) and implement the routes on Dec. 5, 2019. ZBW will require more outside resources to make this happen. Any delays in the DataComm waterfall could be harmful to our implementation date. The week of Dec. 6 we met with ZDC, ZNY, ZBW, ZJX, and the ATSCC to start reviewing the new Pref Routes for NEC ACR. This was a very large meeting with the facility FTRs, FAST, 530, TMU, and POCs all present. We only got through about 30 percent of the routes so far, but the facilities are working individually to make sure they have what they need. Another group meeting is scheduled for the week of Jan. 28, in which ZTL will also be included. A VOR MON meeting for all the future decoms at ZDC was held. All of the low altitude route structure was designed, but we are still talking about how to tackle the high- altitude structure. One idea would be another ACR type project to include ZOB, ZID, ZBW, ZNY, and ZDC. This would be a very large group but would provide all these facilities a modern high-altitude route structure. This may be a large ask that VOR MON will not want any part of, and AJV14 may be very hesitant to begin another high-altitude project across several ARTCCs. We will discuss the best way forward in the beginning of 2019.