Warming up for the 2012 Olympics
Written by JW Young at 28/11 2011, 14:56 - 0 comments
The Olympics are not only a challenge for athletes; they also require intense preparation for the support services involved. For us at EUROCONTROL, we have to ensure that sufficient airspace is available and that all parties are prepared - and flexible enough - to handle additional and, at times, unpredictable traffic flows.
London will host the Olympic Games from 27 July to 12 August and the Paralympics from 29 August to 9 September 2012. These events will generate substantial amounts of extra air traffic, on a worldwide basis and over Europe.
How much more air traffic will there be? It is difficult to tell as yet.
We expect that there will be more commercial flights, as well as a sizeable increase in general and business aviation ones, with peaks at the opening and closing ceremonies.
Accurate demand estimates can only be made closer to the day of operation, but we have already begun to make initial capacity assessments.
These take the form of scenarios which look at the five main airports and 35 small airfields around London; simulations are also being conducted for the London Terminal Airspace (TMA), which is made up of 22 sectors.
Gearing up to face different possibilities
NATS and EUROCONTROL’s Airspace Design experts are looking into airspace design configurations and running simulations to see how to optimise traffic flows over this critical period. The high end estimate is for a 45% increase in traffic, both inbound and outbound.
We are also working on constraint scenarios, which cover temporary controlled airspace and holding patterns. The primary objective is to ensure that air traffic controllers’ workload is practicable, so that they can maintain the best possible levels of safety.
These simulations will provide air navigation service providers with a clear view of potential sector loads and help them assess the impact that the planned measures will have, so that they can handle the additional traffic volumes more efficiently.
The simulations will also help neighbouring Area Control Centres identify potential bottlenecks and allow them to plan for adequate sector configurations and proper staffing levels.
The contingency scenarios are varied and include level-capping scenarios, flight level constraints (the so-called Profile Tuning Restrictions, or PTRs), holds, etc.
