A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/761055
SAFETY AND TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT AIRPORT CAPACITY DECISION SUPPORT TOOL (ADEST) Kristen Laubach represents the membership as the Article 114 Representative for ADEST. Her report is below: No major changes to Airport Capacity Decision Support Too l (ADEST) over the past month. An issue arose in the staging phase where ADEST was unable to calculate the AAR for SFO. This is being looked into and will be resolved p rior to moving into production. Programmers continue to develop/design a new prototy pe for ADEST under the Tableau platform , however, it is uncertain if the project will continue as the FAA may cut funding. AIRSPACE Jim Davis (PCT) is the National Air space Representative for NATCA. Below are reports from the various ai rspace team leads and Mr. Davis: ATL Metroplex : The Atlanta Metroplex team implemented our up - numbered SIDs on 11/10/16, and after a brief automation issue , everything has gone as expected. We also implemented the n ew ATL STARs on 11/15/16. The n ew ATL OPD STARs were impl emented on 11/15/16 with actual OPD usage starting at 10 : 00 am the first day. In order to keep throughput at or above previous levels , we decided to gradually use the OPD portion during the slower periods at first. The first day we used the OPDs from 1000 - 1400, and the only issues we were having w ere the pilots not complying or understanding the s peeds on the STAR. The second day we started at 0930 and left them on continuously with no major issues. Delta saw no degradation in throughput, but the pilots wer e still asking questions regarding speeds and expected runways. All the ATC facilities were doing a great job explaining to the pilots what we expect when given certain clearances and also where to find the expected runway on the chart notes. On the eveni ng of 11/22/16 there were four a/c that descended past the last hard altitudes on the OPD, appearing to be descending for the MEAs on the chart. A80 caught all the a/c, but one international a/c did get close with a d eparture from ATL. The ATM and FacRep a t A80 decided it was best to stop using the OPD portion until we could all meet to discuss the issue. There were apparently similar issues at DFW when they first began OPDs, but it was never determined why the pilots were continuing to descend past the las t hard altitude. We are meeting on 11/29/16 to discuss this with hopes to go back to using the OPDs on 11/30/16. Delta and Southwest are also pushing ZTL and A80 to issue a runway transition rather than a landing direction. Both facilities are pushing to keep issuing the landing direction and we continue to let the airlines know that we are legal in issuing the landing direction. To limit the questions to ZTL about which runway to expect , both A80 and ZTL are making an effort to accept handoffs earlier and switch aircraft earlier. We are discussing the landing direction vs. runway transition on 12/5/16 at our post implementation meeting. Report from Joey Tinsley , ATL Metroplex Article 114: Florida Metroplex: