At midnight (Coordinated Universal Time) today, the control of Lisbon's airspace, which includes Cascais and the military bases of Montijo, Sintra and Alverca, began to be carried out with a new tool -- the Point Merge System -- an investment that amounts to almost two million euros and that will allow for more efficient management of traffic, fuel savings, reduction of polluting emissions and noise, explained NAV Portugal.

Due to the increase in traffic and in the face of growing environmental demands, in 2016 NAV began the biggest restructuring of the airspace that it had ever done and, later, in a resolution of the Council of Ministers (RCM) of June 2019, it was mandated by the government led by António Costa to sign an Operating Charter with the Air Force, for the transfer of Sintra's airspace, in order to make the operationalisation of Point Merge viable from 23 April 2020.

The covid-19 pandemic changed the planned deadlines and only now are the conditions met for the implementation of the new system (PMS, in the English acronym), after almost five years of negotiations with the Air Force for the transfer of military airspace to civil aviation, especially in Sintra, but also in Monte Real, in the municipality of Leiria.

The PMS is a sequencing system for approaching airports, in which, in the event of traffic accumulation, the planes waiting for their turn to land are lined up in two arcs and directed to a landing sequence from these arcs, at a constant speed.

In the model used previously, the planes had to make circular waits around the same point and, when they had authorisation to land, they would move to a descent procedure by stages, demanding from the point of view of communication between air traffic control and the pilots.

By replacing the circular waits with linear waits at a higher altitude, more efficient, organised and safe management of air traffic is allowed, contributing to greater fuel savings, a reduction in polluting emissions and the impact of noise on populations.

Additionally, with the transfer of Sintra's military airspace, which even included the transfer of the piloting school to Beja, it becomes possible to create exit routes from Lisbon airport to the West, which means that the planes that are heading for these destinations can turn directly after take-off, without further delay, and also the creation of a second exit route for aircraft bound for Europe, which now have two segregated exit routes available.

Although it expects the new system to contribute to the reduction of delays at Lisbon airport, NAV stressed that this does not depend only on the airspace, but above all on the infrastructure, emphasising that, in 2023, the contribution of air traffic control to flight delays was 10%.

The PMS was only tested for Lisbon and was being worked on at a time when a dual airport solution with Portela + Montijo was envisaged, in order to gradually increase the capacity of the Lisbon airport system from 44 to 72 movements per hour (46 in Lisbon, two in Cascais and 24 in Montijo).

The Montijo location was, however, considered unfeasible by the Independent Technical Commission (CTI) responsible for the strategic environmental assessment of the new airport and the Government led by Luís Montenegro announced, on Tuesday, the decision to build a new airport in Alcochete and dismantle Portela, following the CTI's recommendation.

Read Also: NAV implements new system in Lisbon that may reduce flight delays (Portuguese version)