This document presents a new potential feature for the User Driven Prioritisation Process (UDPP) concept to give access and flexibility to Airspace Users (AUs) when they operate a low number of flights involved in a particular hotspot, a.k.a., Low Volume Users in Constraint (LVUC). Capacity constraints and congestion in the Air Traffic Management system impose delay to flights that cause large costs on airlines and passengers alike, with no significant capacity increases expected in the near-nor medium-term. Current UDPP features such as Enhanced Slot Swapping can increase flexibility for AUs to adapt their operations during capacity constrained situations. However, AUs are often impacted in their flight schedules by constraints that only affect a reduced number of flights, thus being in a situation of reduced flexibility—or no flexibility at all—to prioritise those flights. Some AUs are more vulnerable to this problem because they typically operate a low number of flights, e.g., business aviation. The new method proposed, named Flexible Credits for LVUC (FCL), is based on the use of “credits”, as a virtual currency, to increase the flexibility of LVUCs irrespective of the number of flights operated or affected by delay. FCL aims at facilitating the smooth coordination between AUs during the optimisation of their operations across multiple constraints and over the time. An initial set of simulations performed under credible conditions are presented to preliminarily analyse the feasibility and limitations of the method and to shed light on future research aspects. A first empirical evidence is given in this paper showing that increasing flexibility for LVUCs is possible without jeopardising equity.

Contract-of-Objectives (CoO) is designed in the context of trajectory-based Air Traffic Management (ATM), using mutually agreed objectives between Air Traffic Control (ATC), airlines and airports. This paper provides an overview of the foreseen validation of CoO and discusses the results of the first Humanin-the-Loop (HIL) evaluation of the concept of operations using CoO between Air Traffic Controllers (ATCos). This HIL real time evaluation is carried out in October 2008 in SkyGuide premises in Geneva, Switzerland. Measurements on system performance (i.e., Safety, Efficiency, and Capacity) as well as Human performances (i.e., workload, Situation Awareness, and acceptability) were collected and analyzed. Results show that ATCos are positive with the concept of operations, and they do agree on the principle of flying what were "planned, agreed and negotiated" on the planning phase as opposed to "first come, first served". Results of the evaluations also show that CoO can be applied to 2008 and 2020 traffic level in Europe without any impact on System Safety.

Contract of Objectives (CoO) has been designed in the context of trajectory-based Air Traffic Management (ATM), using mutually agreed objectives between Air Traffic Control (ATC), airlines and airports. This paper provides an overview of the assessment of CoO and discusses the results of the three human-in-the-loop (HIL) evaluations of the concept of operations. Measurements were collected and analysed on system performance (i.e. safety, efficiency and capacity) and human performance (i.e. workload, situation awareness and acceptability) for the human actors involved. Findings indicate that controllers and pilots are positive about the concept of operations, and that they agree on the principle of flying what was “planned, agreed and negotiated” during the planning phase, as opposed to the current “first come, first served” approach. The renegotiation of CoO was assessed as manageable, even with a 2020 traffic load, without any impact on safety. They all recognise that implementation of CoO increases the collaboration between crew and ground, as they share not only the same data but also the same robust objective all through the flight, i.e. the objective determined at strategic level through a collaborative decision-making process (CDM). Some improvements are still needed regarding the HMI and the generation of Target Windows (TWs). The airport and airline operators, as well as the network manager, considered CoO renegotiation to be feasible and acceptable. They were interested in the CDM process proposed. They found the principle of sharing the operational data of other actors to be a great improvement in the way choices are made and validated.

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