Controlling Arrivals at Changi Airport

Barco, in cooperation with NCS Communications Engineering, Singapore, recently received operational acceptance by the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) for the arrival management system at Changi Airport. In 2006, the consortium of Barco and NCS was awarded a contract by the CAAS to provide a complete turn-key arrival management solution. Barco was responsible for all application software, whereas NCS provided all hardware components. NCS will also be responsible for future comprehensive maintenance services. In March 2007, the Singapore arrival management system successfully passed the online acceptance test. The system went operational a month later. The Singapore Flight Information Region is one of the most demanding Air Traffic Control (ATC) environments in terms of traffic load. Barco provided a customized arrival management system based on the OSYRIS product line. One of the core capabilities of the arrival management system is the automatic en-route holding advice generation in order to avoid congestion in the approach area. This feature lowers the operating costs of the airlines by enabling economically optimal high-level holding instead of low-altitude delay absorption methods. In addition, the arrival management system provides automatic route and runway allocation depending on the traffic situation to optimize traffic flow.