MODELING EXTRA AIRCRAFT FUEL CONSUMPTION IN AN EN-ROUTE AIRSPACE ENVIRONMENT

This paper presents a model to quantify and minimise extra fuel consum ed by aircraft flying at levels which are suboptimal in terms of fuel consumption due to relatively crowded airways. It is based on a dynami c queueing system model. In analysing the sensitivity of the parameter s influencing the consumption of extra fuel, the model allows for chan ges in the geometry of the airspace (the length and number of flight l evels), the characteristics of the traffic (the intensity of the arriv ing traffic flow on the airway, the number, size and structure of vari ous classes of aircraft requesting altitude changes (and the separatio n rules applied by Air Traffic Control in serving aircraft requesting altitude changes.