By Jean Luc Devisscher
17th February, 2021

A few years ago, IATA created an extremely useful document called Airport – Collaborative Decision Making (A-CDM): IATA Recommendations. It can be downloaded here and one of the key elements discussed was to understand when A-CDM is really needed for the operation of an airport or airline. These were the key elements IATA came up with:

Airport operations encountering the following issues may prompt consideration of an A-CDM implementation:

• Inefficiency on the airport due to non-optimized turnaround and sequencing performance.
• Poor punctuality and performance (such as airport start delays).
• Poor compliance to Estimated Off Block Time (EOBT) and non-compliant ICAO Filed Flight Plans (FPL).
• Lack of transparency on overall airport plan, or lack of a 'single version of the truth'.
• First come first served principles for start-up which specifically lead to poor sequencing that adversely impacts airport throughput.
• Poor data into network resulting in high regulation to airport.
• Poor recovery of airport after disruption.
• Start-up delay due to false demand.
• Poor interface with handling agents where airlines do not have access to real time systems on turnaround and delay status.

These are merely some of the issues most airports and their stakeholders are faced with. Let’s not forget that overall transparency on how the airport functions in realtime (via a set of parameters) and the measurability of how it meets sustainability targets are equally important. The advantage of the IATA document is that it outlines the key considerations and success factors for all stakeholders, an important basis for airports to understand before they work out the full A-CDM concept.