Effects of capacity sharing on delays and re-routings in European ATM: Results of an ECAC-level simulation study

In this paper we analyse the effects of capacity sharing between Area Control Centres on delays and re-routings. We assume two different design options for capacity sharing (within Air Navigation Service Providers and within Functional Airspace Blocks) and compare them to a baseline scenario. Using the CADENZA optimization and simulation model, we build a case study of a busy day in the ECAC area, using 100 different scenario runs in order to capture traffic variability as well as capacity reductions. Results show that capacity sharing leads to a decrease of delay and re-routing costs that outweighs the additional costs of enabling capacity sharing even if we assume relatively high additional costs per shared sector-hour. Moreover, it can be shown that capacity sharing within ANSPs already delivers ¾ of the benefits that can be achieved via capacity sharing within FABs