Türkiye's Free Route Simulation at the EUROCONTROL Innovation Hub

After months of preparation and prototyping, a massive 12 weeks of real-time simulation involving more than 400 DHMI controllers took place at the EUROCONTROL Innovation Hub. Free route airspace is a vital step forward for Türkiye and DHMI, their ANSP, enabling airlines using Turkish airspace to fly more optimised trajectories, reducing route length, saving fuel, and cutting CO2 emissions. It also brings increased flight predictability, reduced uncertainty for the network, which in turn can lead to potential capacity increases for ATM. The simulation started on 10 January 2022 in Brétigny and completed on 3 June 2022. Each of the 12 weeks of simulation consisted of 12 exercises involving 850 simulated flights, with 33 controllers from DHMI and 42 simulator pilots validating the new airspace design that will support free-route operations in Turkish en-route airspace. The next step will include analysing the massive volume of data gathered during the simulation to generate a final report, but already the interim report based on four weeks of simulations shows that free route operations can be successfully implemented in Türkiye, and that changes in the current design of the airspace would increase controllers' acceptability. More on our simulation capabilities: https://www.eurocontrol.int/simulations More about the EUROCONTROL Innovation Hub: https://www.eurocontrol.int/innovatio...