Benefit assessment of using continuous descent approaches at Atlanta

The use of continuous descent approaches (CDAs) has been discussed numerous times in recent years and has even seen limited demonstrations and implementations in the US and Europe. Even though almost all CDA discussion thus far has been focused on the benefits associated with reduction in noise and emissions, there are huge potential savings for airlines if CDAs were to be implemented. This research outlines a simple approach at quantifying the benefits of CDAs using TAAM fast-time simulation. As the results from this research show, allowing non altitude restricted STARs which have the 2D track freedom to fly direct to the base-leg following the IAF can save airlines approximately 1 minute of flight-time per operations and up to $30 million in fuel annually. All of these savings can be realized without increasing the air traffic controller de-confliction workload, potentially even reducing counts of proximities observed.