A-CDM leads to efficiency gains

London Heathrow is the latest European airport to commence implementation of Airport Collaborative Decision Making (A-CDM) to help ease congestion and improve efficiency. The airport handled 480,000 movements last year but was the worst performing of Europe's top 20 airports in terms of delays according to the Eurocontrol Performance Review Commission. By following Eurocontrol's A-CDM manual, Heathrow expects a steady improvement in operational efficiency starting later this year.

Munich was the first airport to introduce A-CDM in June 2007, bringing about a 10 per cent reduction in taxi times and lower emissions. Other airports, including Brussels and Zurich, have also adopted collaborative procedures under the Eurocontrol A-CDM programme. However, A-CDM calls for cultural change by airport partners to achieve sufficient information exchange - a lengthy process for many airports.

Eurocontrol says there is a very strong case for implementing A-CDM. By using more accurate taxi times and sharing data, controllers can optimise the departure sequence for flights.

If 50 major airports saved one minute per taxi time per flight, as Brussels has achieved, A-CDM could save airlines 145,000 tonnes of fuel or 475,000 tonnes of CO₂ annually.