Above: NATS inside Heathrow tower.

Originally a prototype developed for the 2013 EUROCONTROL SWIM Master Class and subsequently run within an operational trial by NATS since April 2014, the trial system has saved an estimated 8000 tonnes of CO2 and £1.65 million in airline and ground costs.

Snowflake packaged its GO Publisher data exchange technology into NATS’ operational environment to enable arrival information relating to aircraft landing at Heathrow airport to be shared with air traffic controllers in different European countries. As a result, operational decisions can be made to slow aircraft en-route to Heathrow, reducing the time aircraft spend circling in ‘holding stacks’ around London. The effect is a saving in fuel and carbon emissions as aircraft are more efficient when flying at high level yielding a significant benefit to airlines and the environment.

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Alexis James Brooker, Director of Professional Services at Snowflake Software commented: “We are delighted to see Snowflake Software’s products and engineering solutions deployed in an operational context with NATS. As the European aviation community moves towards implementing SWIM, this deployment demonstrates just one example of how Snowflake’s products can help ANSPs and their customers realise tangible operational benefits.”

Ben Sanderson, XMAN System Engineering Manager at NATS said: “This milestone is a monumental achievement, recognising the contributions of suppliers and partner ANSPs, collaboratively enhancing ATM services.”

Spencer Norton, British Airways Fuel Efficiency Manager - Flight Operations commented: “We look forward to on-going collaboration with NATS and the other ANSPs to ensure we can utilise even more fuel savings in future phases of XMAN, including tighter trigger points and an extended horizon to 500nm plus.”

Engineering consultancy Frazer-Nash has supported Snowflake Software with the development of its systems engineering strategy ‒ which in turn has helped the company obtain the approval from the UK air traffic services provider, NATS.

Frazer-Nash was brought in to define the engineering strategy to help align and improve Snowflake’s procedures. Through this, Snowflake was able to demonstrate that its software and system development procedures met the EUROCAE ED-109 objectives for an Assurance Level 4 ( AL-4) system.

In November 2013, Snowflake’s SWIM-WS system was approved for operational trial as part of the Heathrow XMAN project ‒ the new operational procedure to cut the amount of time aircraft circle in ‘holding stacks’ at the airport. This month, as a result of passing the NATS audit, the SWIM-WS system has now reached operational status at the NATS Swanwick air traffic control centre.

Martin Soltau, Business Manager in Frazer-Nash’s aerospace team, said: “In order to understand Snowflake’s business and create a solution that was right for them, our team worked onsite with their specialists to ensure the strategy would see them through the NATS selection process.

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“This project is one example of the type of work we do with smaller businesses to support them in their work with the larger aerospace primes.”

Alex Brooker said: “In the last two years, Frazer-Nash has helped Snowflake align and improve our procedures, as part of a robust systems engineering strategy. This enabled us to provide a high quality AL-4 system delivery to NATS which has now been approved for operational use. It will help NATS achieve its corporate objectives by reducing CO₂ emissions. 

“Having a trusted independent company assess our procedures and then help us towards this goal so efficiently has been fantastic.”

Traditionally NATS has only been able to influence an arriving aircraft’s approach to Heathrow once it enters UK airspace – sometimes only 80 miles from the airport. This limits the opportunity to manage the flow of traffic and can result in additional time spent in the holding stacks.

Using Snowflake’s SWIM-WS system under operational trial since April 2014, NATS has recorded a reduction of up to a minute in holding times for those flights influenced by the trial, saving airlines around £1 million (€1.25 million) in fuel and 5,000 tonnes of CO₂ , as well as reducing noise for communities underneath the stacks.