Global enroute route charges: Analysis and integration into a trajectory planning tool

Abstract

Air navigation en-route charges are one of the main costs of airlines, but they are essential to ensure that each country provides a complete Air Navigation Service. An accurate estimation of these charges is therefore essential for trajectory planning. This thesis analyzes the reliability of Dynamo3, an existing flight optimization web platform, by comparing it with an EUROCONTROL tool. Three European routes have been analyzed and the comparative study reveals three fundamental limitations in the current system: lack of geographic coverage outside Europe, the omission of the mandatory 20 km deduction for takeoff and landing phases in the applicable equations, and the inaccurate distance calculations for non-direct routes. To address these discrepancies, a detailed data collection process has been performed to identify and catalog the corresponding charging models applied worldwide. This global data-based has been integrated into a Python code to refine and compute global en-route charges for any given route. The proposed methodology incorporates the worldwide applicability, corrects the 20 km distance reduction rule, and the use of Great Circle Distance for non-direct trajectories. The final results demonstrate that the proposed solution not only expands the operational scope of trajectory but also improves significantly the precision of overflight charges calculations in comparison with Dynamo3. This work provides a robust structure for global trajectory planning applications and contributes to a more simple understanding of international overflight costs.