In France, data such as described in section 2.1 is produced directly by and for the use of civil aviation authority
since the air navigation service provider is part of it. This data is recorded in ASTERIX standardized European
format (EUROCONTROL, 2014) and requires specific tools to be read. For both studies, software developed by the
French Civil Aviation Authority (DGAC) has been used. It has the valuable added benefit to enable selection of new
data targeted to the needs of each study. Expertise about airport operations and aircraft performances is thus required
to determine the most suitable data set to be used and analyzed.
To take a simple example, in both case studies, it was necessary to identify the time instant at which an aircraft
has vacated the runway after landing. In one case, in order to have the speed of the aircraft when vacating the
runway, a relevant definition of the “exit time” was the time instant at which the aircraft crossed the edge of the
runway – as illustrated by the virtual threshold AA’ on Figure 1 (a). In contrast, in the other case, in order to
determine the time instant when the runway is free of obstacle to be used by another aircraft, a relevant definition of
the “exit time” was the instant time at which the aircraft crossed the obstacle limitation surface of the runway – as
illustrated by the virtual threshold BB’ on Figure 1 (b)