Originally Posted by
WillTravel4Food
Rubbish. This would necessitate a complete rework of the queuing model used at LHR. Fuel endurance will always trump convenience. Given so many flights into LHR are long legs, it seems unlikely anyone would be able to trump those flights. Domestic and other short haul will be held on the ground. That's the new reality. Even those high value JFK-LHR flights get slotted to arrive within a very tight time window.
Perhaps your considerations are rubbish... I already reported that some studies are in progress at Eurocontrol and within some SESAR workpackages, and they are reworking the queue models, introducing the AMAN, TTA and similar concepts.
Reading your comments I suppose you are an experienced ATCO, but also in this case I would suggest you a visit in Brussels (EC or SESAR HQs), and my colleagues will be happy to show you what will be the ATC of the future.
Originally Posted by
ROCAT
This will never work beyond gate holds and ground delays which airlines already control those times. Once an aircraft is the air with congested airspace it is very hard to change their position in a sequence with out lots of control instructions, all of which reduce the safety envelope. One or two attempts that end with with a deal or close to a deal and controllers will stop even attempting it as an unsafe and inefficient practice.
You sure? NATS plans to start sequencing for London airspace 500 NM away so a very easy job to put aircraft in the order you wish one hour before landing. You don't need to work on the stack over Biggin Hill!
Dont forget airlines are stakeholders in many ANSPs (IAG in NATS for example) and ATC is becoming more business oriented (and, I hate to say, less safety oriented...) so we have to comply with airline needs.
Obviously the priorityzation project is a little bit more complicated than the DM article, but in the future airlines can have a word in the sequencing job.