NAV implements new system in Lisbon that can reduce flight delays – Society

The new NAV system for reorganizing air traffic in Lisbon, Point Merge, which can reduce delays, comes into force on May 16, after negotiations with the Air Force and an investment of two million euros.

At midnight (Coordinated Universal Time) on May 16th, control of Lisbon’s airspace, which includes Cascais and the military bases of Montijo, Sintra and Alverca, will be carried out using a new tool — the Point System Merge — an investment that amounts to close to two million euros and will allow for more efficient traffic management, fuel savings, reduction of polluting emissions and noise, as explained by the president of the Board of Directors of NAV Portugal, Pedro Ângelo, and the director of Aeronautical Procedures, Rui Marçal, in a meeting with journalists.

Due to the increase in traffic and in view of growing environmental demands, NAV began in 2016 the largest airspace restructuring it had ever carried out and, later, in a Resolution of the Council of Ministers (RCM) of June 2019, it was mandated by the government led by António Costa to sign an Operation Letter with the Air Force, for the transfer of Sintra airspace, in order to enable the operationalization of Point Merge from April 23, 2020.

However, those responsible explained, the covid-19 pandemic changed the expected deadlines and only now are the conditions met for the implementation of the new system (PMS, in its English acronym), after almost five years of negotiations with the Air Force to provide military airspace for civil aviation, mainly in Sintra but also in Monte Real, in the municipality of Leiria.

PMS is a sequencing system for approaching airports, in which, in the event of traffic accumulation, planes waiting for their turn to land are aligned in two arcs and directed to a landing sequence from these arcs, at a constant speed.

In the model used until now, the planes have to wait in a circle around the same point and, when they are authorized to land, they undergo a descent procedure through landings, demanding from the point of view of communication between traffic control airline and pilots.

Replacing circular waits with linear waits at higher altitudes allows for more efficient, organized and safe management of air traffic, contributing to greater fuel savings, a reduction in pollutant emissions and the impact of noise on populations.

Additionally, with the provision of military airspace in Sintra, which even included the transfer of the flying school to Beja, it is now possible to take off to the West (Azores, or USA), previously impossible, allowing airlines to save travel time and fuel.

According to the 2019 RCM, the Air Force was authorized to incur expenditure on the acquisition of goods and services associated with the necessary transfers up to a maximum amount of 18.8 million euros, plus VAT.

Although they hope that the new system will contribute to reducing delays at Lisbon airport, NAV officials highlighted that this does not only depend on airspace, but above all on infrastructure, highlighting that, in 2023, the contribution of air traffic control to Flight delays were 10%.

The PMS was only tested for Lisbon and was being worked on at a time when a dual airport solution was envisaged with Portela + Montijo, to gradually increase the capacity of the Lisbon airport system from 44 to 72 movements per hour (46 in Lisbon, two in Cascais and 24 in Montijo).

The Montijo location was, however, considered unfeasible by the Independent Technical Commission (CTI) responsible for the strategic environmental assessment of the new airport, which recommended a single solution in Alcochete or Vendas Novas, but pointed out that Humberto Delgado + Santarém “could be a provisional” solution .

Even before becoming prime minister, the social democratic leader, Luís Montenegro, had guaranteed that the decision on the new airport would be taken “in the first days” of his government.