Demand data repository

EUROCONTROL, as the Network Manager (NM), provides operational stakeholders with the most accurate picture of past and future pan-European air traffic demand from several years ahead until the day before operations. This also includes environment data, analysis reports and tools (SAAM and NEST).
All this information is managed by and can be accessed via the Demand Data Repository (DDR). Access to the DDR is restricted (see access conditions below).

We forecast future traffic trends thanks to the knowledge of past traffic flows and several thousands of flight intentions which airlines and airports have shared with us. We collect, store, analyse and process these data on a daily basis to support strategic, seasonal and pre-tactical planning, and special events or major air traffic management (ATM) evolution projects.
We also provide a refined analysis of past demand in order to facilitate post-operation analysis and to identify best practices for future operations.

More precisely, the DDR gives access to the following:

• Past traffic data –These focus on traffic demand, and most recently filed flight plan traffic trajectories and actual trajectories from August 2012 to the present date, which can be used for past analysis;
• Past and pre-ops environment data – These contain all the information required to analyse and process sector loads, capacity bottlenecks, re-routeing options, etc. Users and EUROCONTROL’s experts use them to process future traffic trajectories;
• Strategic traffic forecasts – These cover the planning phase, from 18 months to 7 days before operations. They are used for medium- to-short-term capacity planning and seasonal planning. Users can themselves generate and download this type of forecast, with several 4D trajectory processing options;
• Pre-tactical traffic forecasts – These focus on the planning phase, from 6 days to 1 day before operations. Network pre-tactical planning is supported by the NM ETFMS PREDICT system;
• NEST and SAAM tools – These analyse and process a great deal of information for the purpose of facilitating airspace design and capacity planning in Europe. They are compatible with DDR data and can be downloaded directly from the portal;
• DCT use – For each AIRAC cycle, we prepare a dedicated report (Excel file sheet with a pivot table) fed with all European DCTs (direct routeings) and flight plan use and misuse by airlines;
• DCT mapping – This is a separate application, hosted by DDR2, which provides a way to display and filter on a map a great deal of environmental information – airports, sectors, DCTs, routes, etc. The next release of DCT mapping will provide information concerning free route areas and free route entry and exit points.

The DDR addresses the needs of a wide range of users such as:

• air navigation service providers (ANSPs), who use it to prepare and optimise their capacity plans;
• airlines, who rely on it to detect flight efficiency improvement opportunities by visualising and anonymously comparing flight plan trajectories for any period of time in the past;
• airspace management actors, for airspace management and coordination of the available airspace;
• airports, with the aim of integrating their local plans with the Network Operations Plan;
• the NM, at central/FAB/local level.

Downloads and generation operations are subject to counters, which limits the number of weekly operations per user. Access to the tool and downloaded data cannot be shared.

A certain number of measures had to be taken urgently to allow DDR2 to adapt to the new traffic flows and network situation. These included the following:

• Revision of a large number of processes in order to adapt and reduce thresholds (daily number of flights and file size) so that the DDR did not fail owing to the fall in traffic;
• Temporary suspension of a functionality allowing the detection of flight intention on the basis of past traffic trends. Current forecast processing is complementing this. Forecasts provide a more reasonable number of flights in the short term (April/May/June 2020);
• Putting-in-place of some provisional rules to delete flights which we know will not take place.