UK air navigation service provider Nats and partner Lockheed Martin said the time-based separation (TBS) arrival system they deployed at London Heathrow Airport in March is working better than expected. It's on track to eliminate 80,000 minutes of delays at the airport. TBS uses real-time wind data to calculate the optimum safe time between arriving aircraft, allowing separation distances to be reduced to maintain the landing rate.

“On March 30, with a 35-knot headwind, Nats controllers landed on average two more aircraft per hour and halved delays when compared to similar conditions on March 2 before TBS,” Nats said, despite there being 24 more scheduled arrivals on March 30. Nats and Lockheed Martin spent five years studying the wake vortices of 150,000 aircraft to prove that they dissipate much more quickly in strong headwind conditions, therefore allowing less separation between landings.

Heathrow was chosen as a testbed for the program because that airport has been operating at 98percent capacity for years. The debate continues about whether to add a runway at either Heathrow or Gatwick.