Whilst in the past aircraft were often forced into “holding” stacks around the airport due to congestion or to unavailability of runways, Extended AMAN allows Air Traffic Controllers to sequence incoming flights way before the beginning of descent to the ground (up to 350 Nautical Miles, in some cases), and to inform pilots on how to adjust their aircraft speed accordingly.

Early use of aircraft speed control and adjustment for sequencing purposes absorbs some of the queuing time, whilst enabling the reduction of fuel burn for arriving flights, which translates into both the decrease of carbon emissions in the area surrounding the airport and to significant savings for Airspace Users.

2015_196_AF1 (parts A and B) and 2016_023_AF1 projects, under the coordination of SESAR Deployment Manager, are part of the joint effort named the XMAN initiative deployed by major Air Navigation Service Providers (Skeyes, DFS, DSNA, MUAC, LVNL, Skyguide, Air Navigation Services of Czech Republic) to ensure a coordinated implementation of Extended AMAN in the central part of Europe around some of the busiest European airports, such as: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, London, Munich, Nice, Paris, Vienna and Zurich. Together, these airports welcome more than 500 million passengers on an annual basis and correspond to the backbone of the European Air Traffic Management network.

The XMAN Project foresees a stepwise implementation, where the initial step has encompassed the upgrade of the current Air Traffic Control systems in order to establish an integrated and Extended Arrival management within and across different countries.

The current connections of XMAN systems were achieved through different steps:

1. The connection of XMAN systems between Zurich, Langen Area Control Centre (ACC), Munich ACC and Reims Upper Area Control Centre (UAC) was successfully carried out in July 2017;

2. The connection of XMAN systems between Munich airport and the area of responsibility of Prague ACC was successfully performed in November 2018;

3. The connection of XMAN systems between München, Karlsruhe UAC, Zurich ACC, Prague ACC and Langen ACC was successfully completed in December 2018.
   

Disclaimer

A certain number of completed projects are highlighted as it was already possible to provide detailed information on specific benefits brought by these projects. In time, SESAR Deployment Manager will provide such detailed information for every completed project.