Capabilities outage and neighbouring actions affected pattern of ATM units
capacity recovery Earthquake Flooding Lightning - - Software Bug
4.3.1OPERATIONAL CAPABILITIES AFFECTED
The Economic Analysis shows that the outcome is significantly different depend- ing on the portion of airspace affected by the outage. The consequence of closure of En-route airspace is mainly a combina- tion of delays and re-routings:
By contrast, the closure of a TMA triggers flight cancellations. It will also have a major impact on the global system, including local and regional business around the airport and tourism.
The following chart shows the impact on airspace users of a disruption of a unit controlling both en-route and TMA: the cost of diversions represent more than 50% of the total cost for the Airspace Users. The proportion will be even larger when the impact on airports and local economy is taken into account:
The analysis should describe which ATM services would be hit and how, in particu- lar if and to what extent the En-route,TMA and / or airport traffic would be affected.
9 Contingency Guidelines Appendix B could form the basis for such categorisation of the events.
cancellations
UA ACC - AIRSPACE USERS - daily cost of disruptions
diversions of take-off diversions for landing re-routings delays
Figure 34 - Airspace users -daily costs of disruptions - En route
cancellations
ACC APP - AIRSPACE USERS - daily cost of disruptions
diversions of take-off diversions for landing re-routings delays
4.3.2 DURATION OF THE OUTAGE
Economic impact of such outages is not just a function of the probability of occur- rence of an outage but is also a function of the total period of time during which capacity/service provision would be limit- ed or unavailable.
As part of the discussions about the 'Wait and see scenario” the ANSP should define how long it will then take to restore a sus- tainable ATM Unit capability. Such dura- tion will to some extent be a function of the causing event: possibly, restoring capacity after floods would not take as long as restoring capacity after a fire if the Ops room was protected.
It is not easy to figure out what the pat- tern of capacity restoration could be. This information is necessary for the success- ful design and implementation of the contingency plan: at least the duration of the first steps of capacity/service level restoration (expressed in weeks or months) has a significant impact on the economics of the contingency planning. Such a reasonably descriptive baseline scenario is required to open the dia- logue with the Users on solid grounds, which is of vital importance for the qual- ity of the economic assessment and final buy-in.
4.3.3 ACTION BY NEIGHBOURING ANSPS
As soon as an ACC declares a severe out- age some of the neighbouring ATM units may need to consider reducing their capacity (e.g. for En-route ACC failure); The reasons of the neighbouring ATM units to reduce capacity would be:
Safety reasons, particularly in situa- tions where significant changes in flight profiles would be introduced;
Familiarisation: controllers would need to form a mental picture of the new environment.
The percentage of any capacity reduction would not be a single figure across Europe. It would on the contrary be heav- ily dependant on the local context (quan- tity of traffic rerouted, number of addi- tional conflict points, and number of changes in flight levels).
The period of time during which neigh- bouring ATM units would reduce capacity would equally be a function of the cir- cumstances. However, opinion is shared that it would be measured in weeks rather than in months.
The reaction of the neighbouring ATM units in terms of capacity reduction and duration of such capacity reduction is a parameter to be discussed between neighbouring ANSPs within the context of the preparation of their own contin- gency plans.
To the extent the reaction of neighbour- ing ATM units would have a material impact on the potential consequence of an outage it would be critical to establish a dialogue between adjacent ANSPs as to the magnitude of such consequences.
4.3.4 COST OF THE RESTORATION OF THE CAPACITY
To establish a reasonable order of magni- tude of the cost of restoration of capacity under the “Wait and see” scenario, it has been demonstrated the impact of the cost of capacity restoration under the “Wait and see scenario” is only a fraction of the cost avoidance, hence it is of a sec- ond order of magnitude in the Economic Assessment of Service Continuity.
5. IMPACT OF OUTAGES PER
STAKEHOLDERS
Economic Guidelines recommend consid- ering each category of stakeholders sepa- rately then to consider the cumulative effect of Service Continuity mainly:
Airspace users
ANSPs
Airports and local society
Passengers
5.1 IMPACT OF OUTAGES FROM THE AIRSPACE USERS' PERSPECTIVE Airspace users would potentially be exposed to:
Delays on the ground
Re-routings of flights around the Area of Responsibility (AoR) of the failing unit
Diversions to airports outside the Area of Responsibility of the failing unit
Flight cancellations
Airspace users having their main base of operations in the Area of Responsibility of the failing unit would be exposed to severe financial troubles
5.2 IMPACT OF OUTAGES FROM THE ANSPS' PERSPECTIVE
ANSPs where a long lasting outage would occur would be exposed to severe finan- cial trouble. ANSPs are also exposed to public criticism, damage to corporate rep- utation and customer base.
ANSPs performing under the cost recov- ery mechanism have strong expectations that unit rates should reduce steadily: in case of a long lasting outage of one of their units the chargeable service units would decrease and the ANSP's unit rate would be severally affected all the more
when airspace users would fly around the airspace, making the situation even worse.
ANSPs performing under a price cap regime linked to a performance targets have a vested economic interest in ensur- ing that consequences of outages are kept as low as possible.
5.3 IMPACT OF OUTAGES FROM THE AIRPORTS' PERSPECTIVE
Airports located under the Area of Responsibility of a failing unit would be severely hit by long lasting outages of the TMA.
Closure of an airport will have knock-on effects on other airports:
Negative effects on the origin & desti- nation airports as a direct proportion of the number of flight cancellations,
Positive on nearby airports as a direct proportion of the number of flights diverted to such airports.
5.4 IMPACT OF OUTAGES FROM THE PASSENGERS' AND LOCAL SOCIETY'S PERSPECTIVE
Passengers usually departing or landing at airports located under the AoR of a fail- ing unit would be potentially exposed to:
Delays before departure;
Obligation to use more time consum- ing or more expensive modes of transport, when available;
Obligation to go to distant airports when no other mode of transport is available;
Travel cancellations when no alterna- tive is available.
The total impact would also include indi- rect societal losses (i.e linked to loss of jobs, impact on tourism and revenues from air freight) in the catchment area of the airport.
6. DESCRIPTION OF THE MITI-
GATING STRATEGIES FOR EACH
CATEGORY OF OUTAGES
For each severe situation described above, i.e.:
A facility is out of service but the staff is operational (flood, explosion at a moment when there is almost no staff present)
A major software bug has occurred -
A facility is operational but part of the staff was hit (pandemics, explosion when staff is present)
ANSPs should follow a similar process as described above for the “Wait and see” scenario:
6.1 DESCRIBE THE OPERATING CON- CEPT OF THEIR MITIGATING STRATEGY (IES)
The purpose of this critical step is twofold:
To assess if a cost effective means of protecting against the consequence of a major outage exists or not.
In case the answer is positive to find out which strategy or combination of strategies is most cost effective or affordable.
In performing this critical exercise ANSPs should ensure that the proposed strategy (ies) is an effective response to the out- ages. For instance, if the ANSP wants to ensure Service Continuity in case of earthquakes, a concept of contingency based on the utilisation of a co-located operation/ contingency rooms would be ineffective.
6.2 DESCRIBE THE DURATION OF CAPACITY RECOVERY AND THE PAT- TERN OF CAPACITY RECOVERY The Economic Analysis has shown than
the pattern of capacity recovery is critical. In terms of gross benefits the availability of a full back-up facility is an effective solution because it avoids most of the losses incurred until capacity is restored. 6.3 DETERMINE THE COST (INVEST- MENT COST AND RUNNING COST) OF THE STRATEGY (IES)
Contrary to what happens in the “Wait and see” scenario,the cost of investment has a major impact on the cost effective- ness of the strategy.Unless the outage would occur (and to a lesser extent depending on the level of traffic), build- ing and maintaining a full back up ACC ( 50 to 100 million) could be a drain of limited resources.
Economic Analysis has equally shown that the operating cost of maintaining the contingency has a significant impact on the cost effectiveness of the strategy. A system requiring continuous mainte- nance could prove to be very expensive. A trade-off must be looked for between the merits of a system providing at all times maximum fall-back capacity and those of a system requiring some efforts (money and time) for upgrade hence taking a longer time to produce the same capaci- ty/service level. The Economic Analysis is capable to assist in performing the analy- sis of the trade-off.
Since the cost of implementing a strategy is not the only element to take into account for the decision (see below Conclusions), at least the Economic Analysis can assist ANSPs (and State authority/ policy making authority) in determining the financial envelope required for contingency planning for service continuity.
The steps describing the mitigating strat- egy could be summarised in a table like:
7. PERFORM THE ECONOMIC
ANALYSIS OF THE MITIGATING
STRATEGY (IES)
The Economic Analysis has shown how critical it is to perform an economic analy- sis of all alternative strategies restoring part or all of the lost capacity/service level for each event of outage.
7.1 GENERAL PRINCIPLES
The performance of the economic analy- sis consists in comparing the costs and benefits of each “Service Continuity” strat- egy against the “Wait and see scenario”. In an ideal world several solutions would emerge and would be ranked by orders of merits.
The analysis consists in identifying and measuring for each ATM unit, each cate- gory of outage and each candidate miti- gating strategy:
The net benefit of having “contin- gency in place” against the “Wait and see” scenario
The cost (investment cost and run- ning cost) of the mitigating strategy
And to establish the cost effective- ness of each mitigating strategy, tak-
ing into account the probability of occurrence of the outage, the accept- ed discount rate, the required cost to benefit ratio and as the case may be the risk aversion factor declared by the key players and endorsed by the regulator.
7.2 PERFORMANCE OF THE ANALYSIS PER STAKEHOLDER
This exercise should be seen from the per- spective of each category of stakeholders. ANSPs and regulators should open the dialogue with the stakeholders so as to collect quality inputs for the economic analysis and secure buy-in of their strate- gy.
The results of the economic analysis are very much dependant on some individual values used as standards for the perform- ance of cost benefit analysis such as the CBA for SESAR.
Such figures should be fine-tuned as much as possible and made consistent. This exercise should also be undergone locally for the performance of local con- tingency planning and in order to secure buy-in by local stakeholders.