Delhi Airport to debut Collaborative Decision Making

The capital's Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGI) has become the first airport in the country to introduce Airport Collaborative Decision Making (A-CDM). The initiative has been jointly taken up by the Air Traffic Control (ATC), the GMR Group-led consortium DIAL and the airlines operating from the airport. The system is named as DA-CDM (Delhi Airport-Collaborative Decision Making). This is a concept focusing on improving Air Traffic Flow and Capacity Management at airports by reducing delays, improving the predictability of events and optimizing the utilisation of resources. It involves airport operators, airlines, ground handlers and ATC collaborating and sharing data to increase overall airport efficiency.

 I Prabhakara Rao CEO at DIAL said, "The DA-CDM is a true game changer in the Indian Aviation industry. A move that will allow us to achieve annual savings at IGI Airport of 2500 tons ATF and also leading to 7850 tons of saved CO2 emission by reducing the taxiway time by even a mere one minute per aircraft. In addition, with three operating runways and the upcoming state of the art ATC tower we are poised to handle a robust air traffic with best accuracy and efficiency."

Based on the TOBT timings the air traffic controller knows the demand of the runway and accordingly plans the optimal departure sequence and determines the Target Take Off Time (TTOT) for each departing flight. Deducting the variable taxi time between the runway and the aircraft bay gives the so called TSAT, the time for the aircraft to push-back.

 The DA-CDM system was successfully implemented at IGI Airport on World Environment Day, June 5, 2013.