Operates as a Fully Independent International Civil Aviation Consultancy

Company LFV Aviation Consulting
Date 18.09.2014

With the help of satellites , accuracy and safety is to improve when aircraft land. Gothenburg City Airport is the first in Sweden to offer flights these new procedures and the Swedish air navigation services provider (LFV) is responsible for the implementation.

The new procedures are used during the very last phase of the flight, the last few minutes before landing. The existing routes are still used, but it will involve a different type of technology which, with a higher rate of higher accuracy, determines the aircraft’s position both horizontally and vertically.

For the aircraft the use of the new procedures will improve safety, increase capacity use, and save on costs over the long term, says Annika Nyberg, CEO of Gothenburg City Airport. The new procedures are called RNAV GNSS and are based on a GPS system. These are introduced with three different features targeted to operators with different types of equipment; partly one type where one navigates only via GPS, that is, without terrestrial equipment, and secondly where vertical information is also provided, which increases safety. The vertical information can either be based on barometric pressure or stem from a support function for GPS, EGNOS (European Geostationary Navigation Overlay System, which is a regional satellite system that corrects the GPS signals so that the deviation decreases from about six meters to between only one and two meters).

LFV has done a great job in design, construction and implementation of new approach procedures. With the right training we are now excited to start a procedure that will benefit aviation a great deal, says Karin Schagerlind, Head of Operations, LFV Air Traffic Services at Gothenburg City Airport.

EGNOS is a free service. The satellite system has been initiated by the European Commission, ESA (European Space Agency) and Eurocontrol. The background is that the ICAO would like aircrafts to speed up the introduction of technologies and procedures to increase safety during landing, and the use of EGNOS is therefore an option that facilitates meeting this requirement.

The first airport to have all three variants, where EGNOS is the most recent addition, is thus Gothenburg City Airport. The choice of the airport was due to several airlines using Gothenburg City Airport already having the equipment needed to use EGNOS. Storuman Airport is next in line to implement the new procedure.

Contact

LFV Aviation Consulting
SE-601 79
Norrkoping
Sweden
  • +46 11 19 20 00