At ENAIRE, we have been developing the Flight Procedure Design (FPD) service for years. This service involves creating, validating, publishing, and maintaining the flight procedures used by aircraft to take off, land, or traverse a given airspace safely and efficiently.
On 27 January 2022, the Spanish Aviation Safety and Security Agency (AESA) certified us as a flight procedure design provider, making us the first organisation in Spain to offer this service.
The foundational regulation governing flight procedure design and the technical standards for designing airspace structures are set out in:
This European Union regulation establishes common requirements for air traffic management and air navigation service (ATM/ANS) providers, including flight procedure design. It requires that these services be certified and overseen by the competent aviation authority in each country.
This technical document from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) establishes the criteria and methods for the safe design of these procedures. It covers all types of procedures (departures, arrivals, approaches) and specifies how to account for obstacles.
Flight procedures are pre-determined flight manoeuvres intended to be followed by a pilot, published electronically, and developed in accordance with Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) or Visual Flight Rules (VFR).
Examples of procedures designed under this service include:
These procedures take into account a wide range of factors: terrain geography, obstacles, aircraft performance, navigation systems, traffic requirements, environmental impact, and, above all, operational safety.
