Integrated RNAV procedure design: City-pair analysis

Potential benefits of area navigation (RNAV) to operating costs, airspace capacity, and environmental impact are well known. Unfortunately, several real-world RNAV implementations have underperformed benefits expectations. Integrated procedure design seeks to capitalize on the benefits of RNAV and mitigate some of the effects that reduce benefit. This paper focuses on integrating upstream and downstream constraints into procedure design to achieve this goal. It explains a general methodology for combining techniques, such as diverging departures and Q-routes during route development. The method considers net capacity impact from one or more procedure revisions, using an origin-to-destination view. Some procedure modifications specifically considered include runway efficiency changes, additional egress points, and RNAV-based Q-routes. We present a specific case study with the method and show how it can account for mixed equipage, variable aircraft weight categories, and downstream route merging.