Enaire has carried out, since last Thursday, the Ambar project at Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport, which entails the modification of the airspace. This project enables, among other improvements, the mode of operation with independent approaches on the existing parallel stands.
According to the Spanish Director of Aeronautics, this decision will mean improving the efficiency of air operations, “improving service quality, fuel consumption and emissions.”
of Enaire they justified this amendment – which will also be implemented at other airports in its network with parallel runways – on the need to “meet the regulatory requirements currently available for 2024 and 2030 in European Regulation (EU) 2018/1048, regarding the need to The presence of departure and arrival methods for the devices, as well as approaches designed with advanced technology, ”according to It has been reported Fly News.
Planes landing at these airports, even now – and according to the same media outlet – are directed to fixed points from which the landing approach begins. Thus, the air traffic controller must adjust the altitudes and speeds of the aircraft to place them in sequence, maintaining a distance of at least 1.5 miles (2.8 km) diagonally between two aircraft approaching each runway.
With the new airspace, the approach will now be directed by two controllers. One per runway for the crew to communicate with the corresponding tower controller. This is intended to reduce the separation between aircraft on different runways, allowing, for example, parallel landings. This allows to increase the number of processes without affecting security.
For this, a transition plan has been drawn up that will be implemented during the first weeks while the controllers and pilots adjust to the new procedures. From Enaire, they assured that the new measures “will not affect noise footprints or timelines.”
