NEWS FLASH
Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport has begun a pretrial of Airport Collaborative Decision-Making (A-CDM), which aims to improve the efficiency and resilience of airport operations by optimising the use of resources and improving the predictability of air traffic. It achieves this by encouraging airport partners (airport operators, aircraft operators, ground handlers and ATC) and the Network Manager to work more transparently and collaboratively, exchanging relevant accurate and timely information. It focuses especially on aircraft turnaround and pre-departure processes. It also allows the exchange of more accurate departure information, particularly target takeoff times, with the European Air Traffic Flow and Capacity Management network, leading to improved en-route and sectoral planning. A-CDM is a joint venture between several European and international organisations, including ACI Europe, Eurocontrol, IATA and the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation.
Interesting. Let's see if it leads to improvements.
ReplyDeleteIt's putting lipstick on a pig. I am sure this is a Vinci company-wide implementation that BEG is doing by default.
DeleteIf they really wanted to improve their product then they would hire more people, offer higher salaries and better work conditions.
What happened with their growth stimulus plan? We are already in March and besides JU and W6 there are barely any major increases or announcements. Even Transavia delayed their launch.
BEG has a lot of room for improvement. I don't see any major changes since the new CEO came.
@Nemjee
DeleteCould we imagine the BUD scenario in BEG? Hungarinas are taking control back.
God I hope not. I wish Vinci would put a greater focus on BEG. However I think they are a bit lazy because JU and W6 seem to be doing well enough.
DeleteIt's up to BEG management to be proactive in attracting new customers and in helping others boost their presence. This Transavia situation is a debacle for them.
NEMJEE I'm sorry for bringing you back to reality but VINCI can't do anything more in a no tourist destination
Delete*ADD has entered the chat*
DeleteShould be enough of a reality check for you.
Flights being on time. Luggage on time. Clean and organised.
DeleteProcessing passengers more quickly for departures and arrivals at passport check. Would be the minimum that Vinci could work to improve at the airport which they haven't done and has no relation to tourism. It's just the basics
I have a lot of sympathies for the frustration about the BEG management, but we need a bit more balanced view here.
ReplyDeleteA-CDM is a European-wide initiative, developed by Eurocontrol more than two decades ago, and is aimed primarily at improving the efficiency in airport operations. It is implemented where the need for it exists, so a few more words on that.
Historically, the activities of the flight ops (crew and ground handlers) have been effectively detached from airport ops (apron movement, passenger movements), which in turn have been effectively detached from the ATC (Air Traffic Control) ops. The flight ops would do "their stuff", and then say to the airport "we're ready", then the airport ops would do "their stuff" and then say to the ATC "we're ready", and then ATC would do "their stuff" and off it goes.
However, this can only work at airports with the low levels of traffic, because none of these in the chain would risk creating delay (and resulting problems) onto the downstream actions. Typically, it is the responsibility of the flight crew to comply with the departure SLOT. At a small airport, they may "do their stuff" minding about the slot, and once ready, they can be sure to take off within a couple of minutes, thus staying within the slot. At a busy airport, once everyone else learns that the flight crew are ready, they may need another half-an-hour to get onto the runway and take-off, thus violating their slot.
A-CDM is, therefore, developed (as a concept) at the European level, to allow, as the name says "collaborative decision-making", that is, to enable three normally independent entities (flight ops, airport ops and ATC) know about each others' actions and intentions in near-real time, and align their decision-making according to shared information.
The introduction of A-CDM in Belgrade is, in my view, a good indication that the number of operations at the airport has reached such a level that further uncoordinated work of the three parties may itself become a source of delays. The decision to introduce it now is also a good indication of some proper lookahead and planning, rather than being constantly in the reactive and damage control mode.
I should mention for the end - A-CDM shouldn't be called a "Vinci's initiative". It's always a multi-party initiative, where airports often have the biggest stake (and the strongest PR), but are not necessarily the leaders, and certainly not the only responsible.
Judging by number of delays last theee years, they are three year late with the implementation of this system
Delete@13:07
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It's not working at any airports already implemented it. Big words, an over-complicated system and nothing to do with decision making.
ReplyDeleteAs a pilot, let me tell you this is the most useless thing ever. It goes like this:
ReplyDeleteBasically your ramp agent (the ground handling) advises the airport authorities at what time you'll be ready to push back. This basically means they're done loading the cargo, the jet bridge or stairs are removed, and the pushback truck is there. With the insanely low salaries and crazy working hours being offered to people working in ground handling companies, it's a miracle to find any ground handling company that's not severely understaffed after COVID, therefore having everything done on time in peak season is almost impossible, simply because airlines like Wizz Air or Ryanair are offering ridiculously small amounts of money to begin with. The ground handling companies accept these deals nonetheless, and pay their workers peanuts and overwork them severely, and as a result there's people quitting all the time, resulting in an insane shortage of people that can drive the pushback trucks or move the jet bridges, which means one person is responsible for 2-3-4 flights simultaneously, which creates delays from the get-go. Worse yet, there's trainees on the job all the time, or people with almost no experience in ground handling since they've just switched jobs from a supermarket manager position or something similar.
Then, having estimated at what time all of this would be done, the ramp agent in charge of the flight (and probably one or two more flights) basically informs the airport authorities of the TOBT (Target Off-Block Time). This means the airplane should be fully ready to move by that time.
This then generates a TSAT (Target Startup Approval Time) in the system, basically a time at which you would be cleared for startup in order to catch the allocated CTOT (Calculated Take-Off Time), if one exists (more on that later). Once the airport authority known as apron (or ramp, as it's known in the US) receives your ready message, they then inform the delivery/ground ATC controller that you are now ready for startup and pushback. Again, the apron frequency is not an air traffic control frequency, they just coordinate the ground movements at the airport.
Now, this is the part that affects most of us: When a flight plan is filed, a supercomputer in Brussels decides whether your flight plan route would cause any conflicts with other traffic, or whether at the time of arrival at your destination traffic would be too congested, so if that's the case (mostly during the summer months) the system will generate a CTOT (Calculated Take-Off Time), which is widely known as a "slot". This means you have to take off within -5/+10 minutes of this time in order for traffic to flow smoothly over European airspace. With the closure of Ukrainian and Russian airspace, a lot of (big) airplanes originating from the Middle East big 3 airports have to now overfly the same European airspace that they would normally avoid while flying to the US and Canada. This creates a lot of congestion, and then forces the supercomputer to deconflict traffic by allocating a specific takeoff time which (based on your cruising flight level and cruising speed) would in theory not result in any conflicting traffic enroute or any delays and unnecessary holding at your destination. Sometimes the wait is more than 2 hours in summer.
As you can see, in theory this should work flawlessly, but in practice, it's a major $hit$how, where nothing is really coordinated properly, starting from the lack of baggage loading staff or pushback truck drivers, then continuing through the lack of parking stands or antiquated apron layouts at airports creating congestions in apron movements, finally finishing with poor enroute traffic management where the limit on traffic at a certain flight level can be very low simply because there are not enough air traffic controllers for the airspace of a certain country, so the hourly flow of traffic is severely restricted.
All in all, it's not gonna get better any time soon.