Effects of cross-border free route airspace implementation to Turkish and adjacent flight information regions

Free route airspace (FRA) and Cross-border FRA operations, which have been implemented under the leadership of SESAR since 2008 in European airspace, have been the subject of this study. In the study, the outputs of the NEST fast-time simulation program, which was created with the AIRAC data of August 9, 2019, one of the busiest days in the Turkish airspace, were used. The simulation models have been created in such a way that Turkiye and Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine and Moldova come together in different combinations and implement Cross-border FRA above FL285. 5 Cases were studied in the light of the obtained simulation outputs. In case of implementing Cross border FRA to the regarding airspaces, issues such as flight distance, fuel economy, environmental impact are examined in terms of their effects on flight trajectories and Turkish airspace. The effect of the opening of the Ukrainian airspace on the surrounding countries and flights was noticable in the studies. With the opening of the Ukrainian airspace the decrease in flight distances has been observed. In addition to this, a decrease in Turkish airspace crossing distances has also been observed. The analyzes of 3 „Ukrainian airspace open‟ Cases give close results. It has been concluded that Cross border FRA operations to be implemented between Turkiye and Ukraine may be more applicable.