FAQs
With decades of expertise in airline operations, ATC and piloting (USAF, corporate, United B400 Captain, retired), it is clear that what we are doing to mitigate airline delays, congestion and excess CO2, is not working. Not only does this cost individual airlines Billions annually, but it unnecessarily reduces product quality and safety while increasing CO2 emissions. After 4 decades of effort and $100s of Billions without success, it is time for a new perspective.
What is the Root Cause of airline delays, congestion and excess CO2?
- What does the current “day of” Operational Dismality cost an individual large airline?
- I tried to comply with the GreenLandings® message, but was vectored by ATC?
Isn’t there too much confusion and variability in the terminal area to manage the arrival flow?
Won’t GreenLandings® interfere with Air Traffic Control or Traffic Management Advisory?
Won’t Air Traffic Control or Traffic Management Advisory interfere with GreenLandings®?
Our flights are already on time, how can GreenLandings® help?
How much of a change will GreenLandings® make to each aircraft?
This is a big problem. How can such small changes make a difference?
Avionics are tremendously expensive, what new gear do I need to put on my airframes?
I can see how this could work for my hubs, but what about non-hub airports?
What is the Root Cause of airline delays, congestion and excess CO2?
Let me be blunt – the airline’s decades old “day of” operational process is at the core of most of the airline’s multi-Billion dollar delay problem, not the airports or the Air Traffic Control (ATC) system.
Drilling down further, the root cause of most airline delays are the random point overloads of our aviation assets (airports, airspace, ramp, gates, etc.) that are predictable hours prior, “day of”. But, more importantly, these overloads are easily preventable, but only each individual airline can do it efficiently.
Not by ATC, not by FAA/Eurocontrol, not by adjusting schedules, not by a capacity limitations (e.g., slots), not by a focus on D0, not by airports and not by labor. Only the individual airline can expertly prevent delays by internally rebuilding their “day of” production line, day in and day out, 24/7-365, starting with the real time management of the movement of their aircraft. Who lands first, second, third, etc. is crucial to the success and efficiency of the individual airline/operator’s “day of” operation yet is unnecessarily left to random chance.
And until the airlines correct this internal airline problem, nothing ATC can do will reduce today’s airline delay problem.
In other words, aviation is looking at the delay problem incorrectly, unnecessarily wasting aircraft productivity, jet fuel, labor, airport capacity and profits, costing individual large airlines over $5 Billion annually.
The random point overload problem is graphically depicted in the 2 arrival LaGuardia demand slides below. The 1-hour bin size slide shows minimal overload, while the 15-minute bin slide size depicts numerous point overloads. Same day, same airport, same capacity and same demand, yet it is these short duration point overloads that forces ATC to delay aircraft.
In fact, to deal with the random point overload, the only “day of” option the ATC controller has is delay, as shown below. Slow the aircraft down, vector the aircraft on a longer route or increase the length of the final approach to the runway to move the aircraft backward in time.
Conversely, an individual airline has the “day of” data, business goals (schedule, gate availability, crew legality, fuel, maintenance, galleys, lavs, etc.) and capability to predict the point overload hours in advance and, by partnering with the pilot to manage the enroute speed of the aircraft in real time, adjust the arrival time for each of their aircraft to pull aircraft forward in time to prevent the overload.
Everything is in place to accomplish this. All that is needed is the leadership to embrace a significant “day of” operational upgrade.
Of course, weather, capacity, schedules, ATC, maintenance, etc., impact delays, but these are not the root cause of delays, but are second and third level issues that exacerbate the variant point overloads.
Finally, except for the separation task (an ATC task), I don’t understand the airline industry’s willingness to unnecessarily cede “day of” control of the movement of their aircraft, their largest capital asset, to ATC. This is a huge mistake that costs individual large airlines Billions annually (see analysis below).
“Customers feel variation, not averages.“ (George Eckes, Making Six Sigma Last, 2001)
“If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true is really true, there would be little hope of advance.” (Wright Brothers)
“Normalization of Deviance: The gradual process through which unacceptable practice standards becomes acceptable. As the deviant behavior is repeated without catastrophic results, it becomes the social norm for the organization.” Dr. Diane Vaughn, The Challenger Launch decision.
What does the current “day of” Operational Dismality cost an individual large airline?
The airline’s “day of” operation is unnecessarily failing their passengers and shareholders. These “day of” operational failures cost an individual large airline over $5 Billion each and every year. The analysis below is based on a large mainline airline with 4,100 flights per day, schedule flight/gate buffers of 20 min/flt, fuel costs of $2.19 per gallon and a schedule flight/gate buffer recovery of just 6 minutes per flight.
Notice that the biggest cost of “day of” Operational Dismality is the lost productivity of the aircraft, which can also be seen in United Airline’s 1995 Value of Productivity Gains analysis below.
“It would cost us approximately 8 to 10 airplanes of flying per day if we were to add just a couple of minutes of block time to each flight in our schedule.” (As Southwest Airlines tries to cope with its success, problems at Midway will get team’s attention, Greg Wells, Chicago Tribune, Mar 3rd, 2011)
“Operational Excellence (reliably delivering smiling pax/bag to the destination curb, on time) is critical for consistent airline profitability and employee morale.” (Gordon Bethune, 2009)
“Airline “day of” Operational Excellence is defined as a >%5 CO2 reduction, >85% A0, <3% day to day A0 Standard Deviation, >8-minute scheduled block/gate time reduction per flight.” (R. Michael Baiada, 2010)
I tried to comply with the GreenLandings®message, but was vectored by ATC?
First and foremost, GreenLandings® is a statistical benefit program. And although GreenLandings® can, and often does improve individual flights, the main goal of GreenLandings® is to improve the entire system.
As an example of a system benefit, when GreenLandings® is operational, the time from the arrival cornerpost to landing (Dwell Time) for all aircraft is reduced. This means that even if you are not able to make your individual RTA, your flight still benefits from the fact that other pilots were able to make their RTA.
Of course, the more often you can make the RTA, the better the system will work. As one pilot stated, “When I receive the GreenLandings® message, I am able to comply 70% to 80% of the time, and the more messages I receive, the better I get at meeting the GreenLandings®RTA goal“. In the current implementation, successfully meeting the GreenLandings® RTA 70% of the time is considered successful.
The GreenLandings®time change request is too large?
While the GreenLandings® and FMS cornerpost time predictions are usually very accurate, there are times that the FMS cornerpost time is different than GreenLandings® cornerpost time.
In the millions of GreenLandings® messages sent since GreenLandings® went operational at Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis, Charlotte and Dubai, ATH has received only a very small number of error messages from pilots. ATH personnel have analyzed each report in depth. The largest portion of the problems found thus far stem from the FMS.
Therefore, if the speed change required by the GreenLandings® message seems excessive, the first step should be to crosscheck the FMS calculation. After assuring the latest winds are entered correctly, which is important, simply go to the PROG page and replace the Destination with the target cornerpost fix. The FMS will then show distance (on the FMS routing) and time to the target cornerpost. Then divide the distance to the cornerpost by the groundspeed in nautical miles per minute. For example, if the FMS shows 624 NM to the target cornerpost, and the aircraft is traveling 8 NM/minute, it will take 78 minutes to reach the cornerpost. Absence any large wind changes (usually visible on the Flight Plan), the aircraft will reach the cornerpost 78 minutes later.
Isn’t sequencing FAA’s job?
While FAA is indeed part of the solution, it is incumbent upon the pilots and airline/users to manage their aircraft. From a business perspective, too often aircraft arrive early and wait for a gate, or an aircraft lands early only to delay another late aircraft.
Further, the only reason ATC vectors and sequences so heavily near the airport is because the airline/users did nothing hours prior to identify and prevent this mess.
Airlines could. Airlines should. Airlines don’t.
And while FAA is responsible for the safe separation of aircraft, FAA should never be concerned with the business decisions by each pilot, operator or airline. GreenLandings® is an operationally proven, tactical aircraft landing management tool, and can only be done efficiently by the person that owns the aircraft. Only the aircraft operator or airline knows the economic priorities for each of their assets/aircraft at any given moment (schedule, connections, gate availability, crew legality, fuel on board, maintenance, galleys, lavs, etc.).
Isn’t there too much confusion and variability in the terminal area to manage the arrival flow?
While we agree that there is a lot of confusion and variability within the terminal area, this is an outcome and symptom of the unmanaged, highly variable landings times and not a constraint to managing the aircraft landing times.
Bryan Bedford (FAA Administrator, 2026) recently said the following.
“I think the strategy is actually pretty simple. Define what the current state of the NAS (National Airspace System) is today. We have non-interoperable systems, right, between ATOP and STARS and ERAM stitched together. We have not one airspace system, but hundreds of airspace systems, none of them are optimized. What do I mean by that? United’s got a system, they’re optimizing their system. American’s got a system, they’re optimizing. Delta’s got one, Southwest’s got one. UPS has one. Everybody’s got a system, none of them are optimized together. We want to really wring capacity out of the airspace system.
“We have to go from a high variance, low predictability model to a low variance, high predictability model. And the only way to get there is to go from a chaotic, ‘hey, every day is a new day for air traffic. I wonder how we’ll get through today“.
We agree with everything Bedford said, especially about the need to go from a high variance, low predictability model to a low variance, high predictability model.
In fact, this is exactly what we have been trying to achieve for the last 30 years and the principals upon which GreenLandings® was built.
But I believe the difference between Bedford and our vision is that Bedford probably believes that this optimization should be done within FAA (highly complex, very expensive, decades long implementation). Conversely, I believe the optimization can only be efficiently accomplished internally by each airline/user (inexpensive, easily and rapidly implemented) and coordinated by FAA.
In other words, while FAA, or some other Honest Broker, can facilitate the system wide optimization, only each airline can make the proper business decisions that are efficient and profitable for their “day of” operation (schedule, connections, gate availability, crew legality, fuel on board, maintenance, galleys, lavs, etc.).
In other words, airline controlled, real time landing time management, executed by the pilots will prevent much of the confusion and variability within the terminal area around the airport.
Won’t GreenLandings® interfere with Air Traffic Control or Traffic Management Advisory?
No.
Think of the ATC arrival problem like a deck of cards. Currently ATC takes the aircraft as they arrive, and then sorts them out based on the first come, first served principle. While the first come, first served process meets the safety goal, most times this sequence is very costly to the operator, pilot or airline, especially at the busier airports.
Conversely, GreenLandings® takes the random deck of cards and presorts it hours prior to landing based on the user’s business needs.
Not only is this “ordered deck” of cards more profitable for the operator, managing a presorted deck makes the ATC task more stable and predictable.
In the end, whether the arrival flow is presorted (GreenLandings®) or left to random chance (today’s operation), the ATC system will do what it does today – make the necessary tactical changes to insure a safe operation.
Won’t Air Traffic Control or Traffic Management Advisory interfere with GreenLandings®?
No.
First, GreenLandings® improves the landing time flow to the aircraft, making ATC’s task easier. Further, GreenLandings® expects that a certain percentage of flights will be vectored or otherwise modified by air traffic control. GreenLandings® will simply mark this particular flight as “untouchable” and move on.
Keep in mind that with the passage of time more and more flights are coming into the picture. GreenLandings® will work these flights around the “untouchable” flights to get the most out of the airspace.
What does GreenLandings® do during irregular operations?
Using GreenLandings®, an aircraft operator can expect a later entry into, and less severe “irregular operations”. But once in an irregular operation, GreenLandings® does the same thing it does during regular operations.
GreenLandings® calculates an optimum time for each aircraft to arrive at the runway and gate. Obviously, during irregular operations, it may not be possible to generate a solution for all airborne aircraft due to the speed limitations imposed by the operator, but the information provided by GreenLandings® is still very useful.
For example, GreenLandings® web site will provide the operator the predicted queue and the position of each aircraft in the queue. If the aircraft is expected to hold for 30 minutes, and the aircraft has only 20 minutes of fuel, it makes little sense to wait for 20 minutes and then divert. Having this information well ahead of time lets the pilot/dispatcher make aircraft by aircraft decisions about holding versus proceeding to an alternate airport.
Our flight is already on time, how can GreenLandings®help?
The following real-world examples of “day of” variance, were experienced by Captain R. Michael Baiada during his 35 years as an airline and business jet pilot. GreenLandings® is a real time arrival
flow management solution that works to prevent these problems by optimizing aircraft landing times to the operator’s business rules from a system perspective.
GreenLandings® pre-sequences the aircraft to a common reference point, thus reducing variance and point overloads (and underloads) on the ATC system, enroute, in the terminal area, and at the airport.
And while the following is written from an airline perspective, these events apply equally to all aircraft – Business jets, military, GA. Helicopters and drones.
What Time Should I Land?
Often, I asked the other pilot what time they want to land, something they never really consider, which is amazing since airlines sell time. After a short pause, they would answer on time, which is a good
first answer.
But what if the inbound and outbound are full, with a minimum turn time? The airline might want to speed up the aircraft to land 10 minutes early to assure the next departure is on time.
Or what if the gate or ramp parking is occupied for 10 minutes after scheduled arrival? The airline might want to slow the aircraft enroute, save fuel, release the earlier landing slot, not congest the ramp, or anger the pax who see empty gates, just not theirs. Or what if the aircraft requires a one-hour maintenance action with only a 40-minute turn time? The airline might want to speed up the aircraft to land 20 minutes early, to allow the next departure to be on time.
So, the correct answer to what time should the aircraft land is “it depends,” something only the airline/operator can decide from a business/system perspective since most changes will impact another
flight (not ATC or the individual pilot).
The Worse it Gets, the Worse it Gets
Next, let’s look at a flight which lands into San Francisco 30 minutes late because of fog. This is one of those times when weather is the first-tier cause of the delay. But because of airline crew scheduling practices, they schedule the aircraft, pilots, and flight attendants separately, so when the aircraft lands into San Francisco, the pilots go one way, the flight attendants go another, while the aircraft sits and waits for pilots and flight attendants from two other flights.
Since the crews must switch aircraft, which means that by the time the new crew arrives at the aircraft, completes the aircraft preflight, and is ready to depart – they end up off the gate 45 minutes late.
The flight to Los Angeles is planned at normal speed and altitude since each flight is planned separately. But given the pressure to reduce fuel cost (yet another airline cost center), the crew slows down to save fuel, so they land 49 minutes late. Since they were later than Los Angeles ramp people expected, no one was there to park the aircraft, so they arrive at the gate 52 minutes late.
The same process repeats itself on the flight back to San Francisco, and the aircraft is now one hour and four minutes late – and, again, on the next flight to Denver. Now the aircraft is one hour and 19 minutes late, and on, and on, throughout the day, and only using the nighttime pause to reset the process.
Conversely, if the airline kept crews together with the aircraft and developed a “fast turn” process to service the aircraft at the gate, such that the 30-minute late arrival for fog departs SFO only 25 minutes late. Also, the flight plan could be calculated to give the pilots extra fuel to allow flying low and fast (best ground speed), so that it arrives at Los Angeles only 21 minutes late.
The ramp should always, yes always, always, aways, park the aircraft when it arrives, the agent would always, yes always, always, always, immediately put the jetway up to the aircraft and open the door, do the “fast turn,” and depart only 18 minutes late. Low and fast again, and now it is 14 minutes late into San Francisco. Repeat, and the flight is on time into Denver.
So, instead of three legs with the aircraft over an hour late, it could be three legs and the aircraft back on time. But this takes a system and defect prevention view, something airlines have yet to
understand.
“Draft Effect”
Another scenario: Consider two aircraft at the front of a tightly packed arrival queue of 30 aircraft. By identifying/speeding up the first two aircraft, moving them forward two minutes, the entire arrival queue moves forward. In other words, moving two aircraft forward at the front end of a large arrival queue doesn’t just save two minutes, but saves two minutes for every aircraft in the queue behind the first two flights, as the entire queue moves forward.
This creates what Dr. Clark of Georgia Tech labeled the “draft effect,” thus dropping 60 minutes of flight time and delay from this one arrival queue alone.
When I arrived at ORD, I landed 16 minutes prior to schedule, instead of 30 to 40 minutes like all the other arriving aircraft which were “pushed” off their departure gates to meet D0 and wasted fuel going normal speed.
Huge Tail Winds
Another example is my flight from Portland, OR (PDX) to Chicago (ORD). That day, the tailwinds were in excess of 180 knots, which would and my flight into ORD 30 to 40 minutes early. Of course, the PDX agents wanted to shut the door 10 minutes early and “push” the aircraft to ORD, since everyone was on board the aircraft (local goal of “shutting the door” early to meet an “on time departure” or D0), which I prevented, and we left on time.
Next, I taxied very slowly and cruised at a low speed for better fuel mileage, to the point ATC asked why I was flying so slowly. Apparently, the controller had never had an A320 cruising at .715 Mach.
Of course, when so many aircraft land 30 to 40 minutes early at a hub airport, the gates are still full from the previous arrival bank. This forces ATC to temporarily park and manage aircraft everywhere and anywhere they can, to the point that – as I exited the runway – I couldn’t talk with ATC as they were completely overloaded with D0 “pushed” aircraft parked everywhere waiting for their gate.
After a few minutes, I was able to break in on the radio, and received clearance to my gate, which was open. As I entered the alley, yes, my gate was open, but it was blocked by five other aircraft that had just left their gates, which were awaiting taxi clearance to depart.
The end result was that ORD devolved into a classic gridlock situation between the departures and D0 forced early arrivals, as the ATC system and airport were completely overwhelmed. I sat for 20 minutes looking at my empty gate 200 yards ahead but couldn’t get to it. Of course, like everyone else who landed 30 to 40 minutes early, I was late to the gate (20 minutes), even though I landed 16 minutes early.
Could ATC and the airport have handled this better? Of course! But the real solution was for the airlines to manage their departures by “pulling” the right aircraft from their departure gates to not
overload the ORD ATC system or the airport.
Clearly, if a simple line pilot recognized the problem hours prior (accurate ETA information hours in advance), an airline should have done the same, and prevented the problem from developing in the first place (Defect Prevention, ala W. Edwards Deming).
It’s the Schedule?
We often hear the airline delay and congestion problem expressed in terms of the printed schedule, i.e., “You can’t schedule 10 aircraft to land at 8 AM and expect everyone to be on time”. Of course, if all 10 aircraft showed up at exactly 8 AM, this would be true.
The answer to this riddle is twofold. First, airlines deliver upwards of 80 percent of their aircraft off schedule (early/late), so the potential of having all 10 aircraft arrive at 8 AM is very low.
But the real answer of how to schedule 10 aircraft to land at 8 AM and assure that all 10 are on schedule is for the airline to tactically manage the aircraft, day of”, hours prior to landing so the first one lands at 7:51 AM (assuming a 60/hr. arrival rate), the second at 7:52, the third at 7:53, etc. To do this requires a level of tactical, real-time, “day of” control that airlines currently have the data and tools available that are necessary to accomplish this but choose not to do so.
The Airport is Full?
Next, airport capacity. First, let me state up front that in my 40 plus years as an Air Force and Airline pilot, I never landed at an airport that was “full”. Overloaded – yes, full – no. There is a difference.
Plenty of capacity is available, even at Chicago before their multi-Billion-dollar runway revamp – but, as the Figure Shows, the available capacity is mostly forward in time.
Of course, airports are over capacity at certain times of the day (even Boise is overcapacity when two aircraft want to land at the same time), but this doesn’t preclude reducing delays, congestion and realizing a much improved on time arrival performance.
ATH simplifies the arrival flow problem by looking at the airport as a single entity, i.e., a box. If the box can hold 60 aircraft per hour, allowing a rate of 80 aircraft per hour (or 40 in 30 minutes) to enter
the “box” assures a very expensive 30 NM final.
Control entry to the “box” and you mitigate much of the current arrival inefficiency and costs (block time, fuel, crew time, noise pollution, etc.).
To make this a reality, the solution is that, instead of waiting for ATC to de-peak the actual arrival flow backward in time at around 200 nautical miles (NM) from landing, an airline could proactively
pull the “right” aircraft off the front end of the actual arrival queue (at 500 to 1,500 NM from landing, or more).
By speeding the “right” aircraft at the front of the arrival queue and pre-sequencing the aircraft inside the queue from a business perspective, hours prior to landing, provides ATH, the airport and ramp a consistent, manageable flow, which increases airport throughput and improves reliability. Further, an airline could speed up late aircraft, deal with aircraft maintenance issues or crew legality issues, and slow early aircraft or aircraft without a gate.
All Airlines Must Participate
A common misconception is that all airlines would have to participate in GreenLandings® to make it work.
I realize that this is what everyone believes, but it is simply not what the data and analysis shows, as proven with FAA Task J at CLT and MSP.
Of course, if all aircraft into an airport were participating through the GreenLandings® Exchange solution (which does not provide any internal business information to the competition), the benefits
would be higher for everyone, but as proven by FAA’s Task J analysis and conclusion, not even most flights need to participate. Further, the thinking that all users must participate assumes that there is limited capacity, and everyone wants the same thing. These are not valid.
Also, once you move each aircraft in time based on the user’s business needs (schedule, gate availability, capacity, maintenance, crew legality, etc.), analysis has shown that this tends to flatten the
over demand events.
Next, consider 10 aircraft flying into a hub, with 8 aircraft belonging to the hub airline and managed and 2 aircraft owned by the competition that are not managed.
Using GreenLandings®, the hub airline could line its 8 aircraft all in a row, ignoring the 2 competing aircraft, but this is inefficient.
If the hub airline did this and ignored the competitor’s aircraft in the 3rd and 6th arrival slots, ATC would simply do what they do today take one of the 2 aircraft in the 3rd arrival slot and move it backwards, and then delay aircraft 4 through 10 backwards in time as well. ATC would then do the same thing for the 2 aircraft in the 6th arrival slot.
A more profitable solution for the hub airlines would be to leave a open slot for the competition, since the hub airline’s aircraft.
By doing this, GreenLandings® benefits all users into the hub.
No Gate?
Why fly fast enroute if your gate is not available? Not only does this waste fuel enroute, but it also congests the terminal airspace, delays other aircraft increases noise, takes up a valuable landing slot
which should be used by a late aircraft, congests the ramp, and – as proven by ATH Group – leads to increased taxi times while early flights wait for their gate.
Further, the airline has ramp workers, fuelers, and other secondary processes “standing by,” wasting time, and costing money. One action produces lower quality with numerous highly variant and costly effects. Nothing academic here – just well-understood supply chain and defect prevention tools from a system perspective.
Given the facts, one would think airlines would jump at the chance to internally implement an FAA proven, independently validated, inexpensive solution that, within months, can improve on time
performance, product quality, profits, and ATC – while cutting costs, fuel, CO2, noise, and daily defects, all with a return on investment measured in months, if not weeks.If your aircraft is on time, GreenLandings® will save fuel and prevent CO2. Not only can GreenLandings® save fuel, but it can also help shave off flight time, while improving on time performance.
How much of a change will GreenLandings®make to each aircraft?
The maximum change that GreenLandings® will make to an individual aircraft will typically be below the range of 5% of current cruise speed or 10 knots as specified in the Aeronautical Information Manual. Additionally, the amount of change requested by each aircraft is an operator policy decision that is easily configurable with in the GreenLandings® software.
This is a big problem. How can such small changes make a difference?
GreenLandings® is a 24/7-365 operation. It looks at every flight and makes a small adjustment to each flight. By making hundreds of small adjustments day in and day out, GreenLandings® provides significant benefit. For example, when an airport is at or above capacity, given the random flow of aircraft queuing theory, ATH Group’s analysis shows that the arrival queue increases exponentially. This is because once capacity is reached, ATC has only one option – de-peak the landing time flow backward in time by adding more and more delay to each successive aircraft.
Conversely, by acting hours prior to landing, GreenLandings® identifies the aircraft at the head of the queue and moves those aircraft forward in time, even if those aircraft are ahead of schedule. Speeding up even a few aircraft at the head of the queue into what would have been wasted landing slots pulls the entire queue forward.
In other words, moving 2 aircraft off the front end of the queue of 30 aircraft doesn’t save 2 minutes; it saves 2 minutes times every aircraft in the queue behind those 2 flights. In this case dropping 60 minutes from the actual arrival flow.
This recapturing of unused slots forward in time is a very powerful near-term benefit, which begins the very first day GreenLandings® is operational.
Secondly, better organization of the landing queue behind the first few aircraft reduces the variance of the arrival flow and provides ATC a more predictable and solvable problem. This requires less vectoring, and therefore less flight time. Again, a day 1 benefit.
Without the GreenLandings® feedback control mechanism an unused landing slot is gone forever. Dr. John-Paul Clark (Georgia Tech) called it the “draft” effect because each of these lost opportunities affects all aircraft behind it, sometimes for the rest of the day.
How many messages will GreenLandings®send each aircraft?
Usually just one, but this is a matter of operator policy.
There are times when a second message could improve the solution. In those cases, GreenLandings® may send two messages during a flight if the operator allows. ATH is very aware of not overloading the pilot with marginal information.
How will our pilots calculate the new arrival time (i.e., RTA)?
Pilots have been trained since the beginning of flight to do distance, speed versus time calculations. Obviously, having a Flight Management Computer (FMC) in the aircraft makes meeting the GreenLandings® time easier.
Many aircraft FMC’s allow entry of a specified time at the arrival fix (RTA). With this RTA function, all the pilot need do is enter the fix time sent by GreenLandings®. Even with a non-FMS aircraft, given the accuracy of the flight plans, meeting the GreenLandings® time within +/- 30 seconds is reasonable.
Military pilots routinely practice “time on target” operations within seconds. This is not a new task for pilots.
Avionics are tremendously expensive, what new gear do I need to put in my aircraft?
No new gear is required on any aircraft.
How difficult is the system to operate the GreenLandings® solution?
Once set up, GreenLandings® is almost fully automated. The system will calculate solutions, update the passive web landing time display and/or send messages to each aircraft on its own.
It is only necessary to monitor the process and adjust input parameters such as airport arrival rate or goal scenario. On some days you may wish to optimize fuel more strongly, or other days schedule or gate availability might be more important.
I can see how this could work for airline hubs, but what about business jets at non-hub airports like Teterboro (TEB)?
At the smaller and Business jet airports, it is still very valuable to know where you fit within the landing queue. If a small change can put even a single aircraft forward of the landing queue, versus the middle of a landing queue, it will save you and those behind you flight time. These minutes may very well make the difference in aircraft being on time or late.