Super Close Runway Operations (SupeRO): review of paired approach concepts on closely spaced parallel runways

Abstract Arrival throughput and runway capacity at an airport are major bottlenecks in air traffic management. Civil aviation organizations like the Federal Aviation Administration and Eurocontrol predict a large growth in demand in aircraft operations in the next 20–30 years. Airports with such a high demand can only serve them nowadays if they conduct visual approaches or paired approach procedures like the Simultaneous Offset Instrument Approach. Under instrument meteorological conditions, those procedures are not available and the runway capacity and especially the arrival throughput drops significantly. The common measure to increase runway capacity is the construction of new runways. To operate them according to current standards, large runway spacing is necessary and thus new large areas have to be acquired by the airport. However, this expansion of the airport area often poses a problem, making it difficult or preventing the construction of a new runway. To address this problem, the German Aerospace Center is developing the Super Close Runway Operations concept. In preparation for the development of paired approaches on super close runways as part of the concept, this paper provides a literature review of similar concepts that have addressed paired approaches. Key technologies required were identified as onboard interval management, adapted displays in the primary flight display and navigation display and the coupling of both aircraft systems. In addition to the key technologies, the merging of both approach courses and the appropriate utilization of wake vortex-free areas were identified as the focus of further investigations.