Trial by Singapore, Indonesia, Australia and NZ aims to shorten travel time on 38 flight routes

SINGAPORE - Travellers on selected flights between Singapore and at least nine cities in Australia and New Zealand may benefit from shorter flight times, under a three-month trial to test a different way of routing international flights that also includes Indonesia.

Traditionally, to get from one point to another, aircraft use a fixed network of airways, which are like invisible highways in the sky, and they are required to follow prescribed routes through this network.

However, since Aug 5, pilots on selected flight routes have been given the flexibility to choose the most direct and efficient paths across the airspaces of the four countries involved.

This air traffic management concept is called user-preferred routing, and the hope is that aircraft will be able to make better use of airspace, cutting travel time, fuel burn and carbon emissions, said the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) on Aug 15.

The trial is being conducted on 38 flight routes operated by national flag carriers Singapore Airlines (SIA), Garuda, Qantas and Air New Zealand.

The routes include those from Singapore to Auckland, Adelaide, Brisbane, Cairns, Christchurch, Darwin, Melbourne and Perth, as well as the Sydney to Singapore route.

User-preferred routing has been trialled as far back as 2008 and the practice already exists in places like Australia. But its use on international routes has been limited due to the complexity of coordinating routes across international airspace boundaries.

CAAS said airlines can potentially save up to 1,700kg of fuel for a flight between Singapore and Melbourne, and cut more than 1,960 tonnes of carbon emissions for a year of daily flights on that route.

This is in line with

Singapore’s longer-term plans

to achieve net-zero emissions from its airports and carriers by 2050.

Singapore Institute of Technology Assistant Professor Awad Khireldin, who teaches air transport management, said the cost savings for airlines from user-preferred routing could help stabilise ticket prices over time, especially in the face of rising fuel prices.

But it may not lead to immediate fare reductions, he noted.

SIA said 15 of its flights are part of the trial, and the airline will explore the feasibility of adding more flight routes to it.

“SIA expects to achieve time and fuel savings when wind conditions are favourable on these routes. This will potentially enhance our customers’ convenience when they fly with us, and reduce SIA’s emissions.”

In an Aug 6 statement, Qantas group chief risk officer Andrew Monaghan said user-preferred routing will allow the airline to tailor individual flight routes and simplify flight planning processes while delivering the same level of safety.

Captain Hugh Pearce, Air New Zealand’s head of flight operations, said the airline has one route in the trial, which is the Singapore-Auckland route.

But even before this, the carrier had already been using partial user-preferred routing through Indonesian and Australian airspace for some time. “We are a strong advocate,” he added.

CAAS said on Aug 15 that the user-preferred routing trial is a key initiative in a larger project to implement free route operations in South-east Asia and Oceania.

Free routing allows airspace users to plan optimal flight paths, taking into account airline preferences, weather and other factors such as airspace restrictions.

The trial comes after

a collaboration agreement

that CAAS signed in October 2023 with its air traffic management counterparts from Indonesia and New Zealand. Airservices Australia, which manages the country’s airspace, joined later.

The other signatories are the International Air Transport Association (Iata), the industry body for airlines, and the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation, which represents air traffic control providers.

CAAS said the parties will review the results of the trial after three months and, subject to feedback, look towards expanding it to more cities and airlines.

Iata’s interim regional vice-president for North Asia and the Asia-Pacific, Dr Xie Xingquan, said the incremental improvements for individual flights will generate significant cumulative benefits, given the number of flights and cities involved in the trial.

Airservices Australia interim chief executive Rob Sharp said: “As an industry, we need to develop and implement innovative practices to ensure we have an efficient and sustainable aviation sector.”

Mr Jamie Bloomfield, director of Singapore-based consultancy Propelo Aviation, said the benefits of user-preferred routing may be limited for shorter flights, such as those from Singapore to Indonesia.

“What’s good about the trial is that it is collaborative across multiple parties, which allows user-preferred routing to be trialled over longer distances,” he said.

Besides shorter flights and better resource management, user-preferred routing can, in theory, also enhance resilience during disruptions by allowing airlines to prioritise some flights over others, he added.

For pilots, the changes are mostly at the flight planning stage, Mr Bloomfield said.

However, for air traffic controllers, a blank canvas, instead of a structured network, increases complexity, which means new system capabilities will be needed in the long term, he added.

Mr Bloomfield said user-preferred routing is also a stepping stone towards the even more flexible concept of

trajectory-based operations

, where an aircraft’s journey from take-off to touchdown is strategically planned across different flight regions.

On the impact on fares, he said it is ultimately down to whether airlines pass on any savings. “The greater benefits come from the potential to reduce the environmental impact of flights. User-preferred routing also has the potential to reduce the severity of delays,” he added.