Integrating bird strike risk information into the airport management system

Birds pose a remarkable threat to aviation safety. Since 1960, bird strikes – collisions between birds and aircraft – have caused at least 30 hull losses of commercial aircraft, 19 of them resulting in a total of 194 fatalities. Due to increasing population sizes, especially of large birds and a rise in global air traffic, the danger of bird strike is expected to rise in the future. The risk is largest below 3000 ft and as such in airport environments. Within the airport system, air traffic control has a major role in guiding the air side movements. Therefore, air traffic control is an important partner in the so called airport collaborative decision making process. In negotiations with airlines, airport operations and ground handlers, air traffic control has a significant influence on decisions about handling of congested traffic situations or disruptive events. Supporting air traffic control with a bird strike advisory system might not only improve the traffic guidance, but also planning activities of airport management if air traffic control provides the additional information to the other stakeholders. A current DLR project considers the integration of information about short- and long-term predictions for bird activity at and around an airfield to the airport management system. The project’s scope lies on evaluating how the additional information is taken into account for the decision-making of the airport stakeholders. For this purpose, workshops in a serious gaming environment and a Human-inthe- Loop simulation environment were performed. This paper describes the chosen approach as well as the obtained results.