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South African Airways selects Cape Town as its first RNP airport
- Quovadis is proud to announce it has been selected by South African Airways to design Required Navigation Performance (RNP) arrival and departure procedures at Cape Town International Airport. South African Airways main objective is to fly shorter routes to reduce fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.
These arrival and departure procedures will fall into the ICAO category of “RNP AR”, AR standing for Authorization Required, which requires operational approval from the airline controlling authority. The procedures will be designed for several aircraft types: Airbus A320 family (including the A321 and the A319), Airbus A330 and Boeing 737-800.
Cape Town International Airport is the second busiest airport in South Africa and represents over 30 daily flights for South African Airways. With about 100,000 operations per year, Cape Town International Airport is also the third busiest Airport in Africa.
Current arrival procedures are averaging 70 Nautical Miles (NM) from Initial approach to landing; South African Airways and Quovadis will work with South African Air Traffic Navigation & Services (ATNS) to optimize the routes.
“We believe that by flying RNP AR procedures, we will save around 20NM on the arrivals and 10NM on the departure creating important savings for the company” says Johnny Woods, head of flight operations and chief pilot, for South African Airways.
“Quovadis was the natural choice for South African Airways, not only has Quovadis broad and international recognized experience in Performance Based Navigation, but their knowledge in terms of Air Traffic Management was critical for such a busy airport. I strongly believe that introducing RNP procedures at Cape Town paves the way to Four dimensional (4D) traffic management” says Johnny Woods.
