RNP-AR Procedures

Satellite-navigation instrument procedures for shorter paths and lower fuel burn.

Region
Middle East
Discipline
Airspace & Procedures
Duration
Multi-year programme
Status
In operational use
The brief

Modernise a country's airspace without interrupting the traffic inside it.

The host country was approaching the ceiling of what its legacy airspace could absorb. Procedures had aged out of the era of paper strips and conventional navigation. Sector boundaries had calcified around fleets and route structures that no longer matched the traffic flowing through them. The mandate was clear: bring the entire system, end to end, into a contemporary, performance-based shape.

GANS was engaged as the lead delivery partner. The remit covered new Performance-Based Navigation arrivals (STARs) and departures (SIDs), holds, instrument approach procedures, and missed approach procedures. It covered additional approach sectors inside the CTA so peak-hour load could be split across more controllers. And it covered the readiness path that gets controllers, dispatchers, and airline operations comfortable with the change before the cutover, not after.

Every part of the system was touched. Every stakeholder had to be brought along. Nothing could break in the meantime.

The scale

Numbers from the final phase.

Figures marked “Sourced from gans.aero” are taken from the original record. Others are placeholders for the content team to verify.

10,000+
Hours, final phase alone

Sourced from gans.aero

03
Real-time simulations

Two run outside the host country

2.5 mo.
Controller training

E-learning plus simulator

40+
Aligned stakeholders

Placeholder · to confirm

01
Fast-time simulation

Network-level traffic study

00
Recorded operational incidents

Post-cutover · placeholder

The approach

Four phases. Nothing was operational until the previous phase said so.

  1. Phase

    Design

    PBN procedures drafted against the host country's traffic profile, then iterated with the regulator, the ANSPs, the airlines, and the military until every constraint was answered on paper.

  2. Phase

    Validate

    Three real-time simulations and one fast-time simulation. Two of the real-time runs were hosted outside the host country to stress-test the procedures against an independent operational baseline.

  3. Phase

    Train

    E-learning packages issued to every ATCO. Approach controllers ran simulator sessions over a two-and-a-half-month window. Dispatchers and airline operations briefed on the same package.

  4. Phase

    Cut over

    Phased introduction into operational use. Stand-by procedures and fall-back authority pre-agreed with the regulator. Post-cutover surveillance period to catch anything that didn't show in simulation.

Operating environment

Procedures designed inside live, mixed-fleet airspace. Nothing left the validation phase until it could be flown safely by both newer PBN-equipped aircraft and the legacy fleet still in service.

We needed the whole system rebuilt and the lights to stay on. GANS owned the design, owned the simulations, and owned the training. By the time we went live, the controllers were ahead of the procedures, not catching up to them.

Senior leadership, host air navigation authority

Placeholder . to be attributed

What it delivered

Outcomes the country now operates on.

  • Performance-Based Navigation in operational use

    New STARs, SIDs, holds, instrument approach procedures and missed approach procedures across the host country, ready for suitably equipped aircraft.

  • Headroom for Independent Parallel Operations

    Procedures and sector design now support Independent Parallel Operations at the impacted airports as fleet capability matures.

  • Additional approach sectors in the CTA

    Peak-hour load split across more controller positions, lifting the practical ceiling on managed aircraft per hour.

  • ATCO readiness ahead of cutover

    Two and a half months of structured training, e-learning packages for every controller, simulator hours focused on the approach community.