Table 2 : Project life cycle
Benefit mechanisms involve capacity and/or efficiency enhancements by phase of operation. The phases of operation used are:
- Airport surface region
- Final approach/Initial departure region
- Approach/Departure transition region
- Procedurally defined climb / descent (SIDS / STARS) region
- En-route / Oceanic region.
The throughput in all of these regions determines the capacity and efficiency of the total air traffic management system.
...And the Challenges
- Airlines and Air Traffic Management agencies will both be hesitant to invest in the necessary equipment until they are convinced that their costs can be recovered. Who will have the vision to make the first move?
- To achieve the full economic benefits of FANS, unprecedented levels of international cooperation between governments, airlines, suppliers and ATC agencies will be needed to ensure the transition to FANS is both global and rapid, smooth and well coordinated. Common standards must be established and kept.
- Bold thinking is needed to overcome concerns about national control over airspace. Creative new approaches to the regional management of air traffic will maximize the benefits of FANS.
- New forms of financing will have to be found to help those developing countries and airlines that are unable to afford the necessary investments.
Economic Appraisal
Investments in the aviation infrastructure are required continuously in order to maintain safety and reliability, improve the quality of service and match system capacity with the expected traffic growth.
The decision-maker, who is responsible for sanctioning future projects, will require a clear understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of the proposals.
Cost - Benefit Analysis (CBA) is widely accepted as a vital support tool for economic analysis in Air Traffic Management (ATM). To be most effective CBA should be invoked as early as possible in the project life cycle ( See Table 2 ). Project sponsors will need to know at an early stage (before detailed requirements are drawn up):
- what type of benefits their project is likely to bring;
- how much (approximately) these benefits will be worth in economic terms;
- who will receive the benefits (the beneficiaries);
- what the associated costs are likely to be.
Table 3 : Outline of a typical CBA
An outline of a typical CBA is shown in Table 3.Cost types