With the development of aircraft equipment, conventional navigation shifted towards performance-based navigation (PBN) procedures, which significantly improved the efficiency of airport arrivals. Availability of the open-access Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) data enables research targeting careful and detailed analysis of the arrival performance. In this work, we demonstrate how we use historical data provided via Opensky Network to investigate various aspects of arrival performance at three European airports implementing different sequencing and merging techniques (Dublin, Stockholm-Arlanda, and Vienna). We create a number of datasets of different size and features, and apply a set of performance metrics characterizing horizontal and vertical efficiency, sequencing and metering effort, as well as environmental efficiency at the chosen airports.

The ability to comprehensively evaluate the performance inside Terminal Maneuvering Area (TMA) is important for understanding of the traffic conditions in the airport vicinity, and to identify the areas for possible improvements. We examine performance of the individual arrival flows to Göteborg Landvetter airport and analyze them separately in order to identify the problematic areas. Then, we test the potential of introducing Point Merge (PM) arrival procedure to this airport and schedule aircraft arrivals along them. We aim to determine whether introducing the PM structure improves the arrival performance and analyze the associated trade-offs. Comparing the resulting performance of the optimally-scheduled arrivals with PM against the baseline scenario derived from the historical flight trajectories obtained from the open-source Opensky Network database, we observe that adherence to the PM procedures provides a decrease in the fuel consumption about 5% in average due to improved vertical efficiency, however the time and distance aircraft spend in TMA increased both 10.4%. PM usage provides additional benefits in terms of improved controllability of the traffic flows, supported by significant reduction in the spacing deviation within the control area close to the runway.

Point Merge (PM) arrival procedures are currently in use at 44 airports across 20 countries worldwide. These procedures come in various design variants, including overlapping, partially overlapping, or separated sequencing legs. The positioning of sequencing legs within or outside of the Terminal Maneuvering Area (TMA) and the geometry of the arrival flows to PM or merging points impact the associated trade-offs between the PM system capacity and efficiency. In our study, we analyze the utilization of PM procedures at several airports implementing PM, using open-access ADS-B-based data from the Opensky Network. To identify flights that adhere to the PM procedures, we propose a catchment algorithm. The accuracy of the algorithm depends on the quality and completeness of the data, the specific design of the algorithm, and the complexity of the PM procedures. Generally, a well-designed catchment algorithm can achieve high accuracy by considering factors such as aircraft positions, speeds, and adherence to sequencing instructions. Then, we quantify PM utilization using performance indicators specifically tailored for this purpose. This paper builds upon previous research presented at the 11th OpenSky Symposium in 2023. We introduce an additional step to enhance the accuracy of the catchment algorithm and conduct a comprehensive sensitivity analysis of the catchment area size employed in the initial stage. We quantify the algorithm’s accuracy by considering false-positive and false-negative filtered trajectories. Furthermore, we compare the results of our proposed approach with the PM identification tool available in the Traffic Library.