Over the last decades, the European civil air traffic has increased by approximately 5% annually. In 1999, 25% of the total delays were caused by (lack of) en-route ATC capacity. In addition, this (lack of) en-route ATC capacity triggers part of the reactionary delays. Reactionary delays are built up by a number of primary delay causes and add up to 41% of the total delay.

In 2000, these delays figures gave rise to the feeling that the capacity limit had been reached and no spare capacity seemed available anymore in the core of Europe. Meanwhile, the emerge of new datalink technologies and the continuous growth of air traffic over the last decades sparked the discussion on how conventional separation assurance limited the air traffic system capacity. Air traffic separation assurance is one of the main components of Air Traffic Control (ATC), which is traditionally performed by air traffic controllers that guide traffic based on radar surveillance and, if available, aircraft flight plan information. One of the key questions was if en-route airspace capacity can be increased by the use of aircraft intent information for separation assurance, and how much intent information should be made available. Moreover, should the availability of intent information be combined with a shift of the separation assurance task from the ground-based controllers to the aircrew?

The INTENT project was initiated in December 2000 to study the effect of aircraft intent information, used by the ground Air Traffic Management (ATM) systems and other aircraft, on en-route airspace capacity.

The INTENT project was co-funded by the European Union and the INTENT consortium. The INTENT consortium consisted of three Research Institutes (NLR, QinetiQ and ONERA), three industrial partners (Rockwell Collins, Smiths Aerospace and AIRBUS), an international organisation representing the service provider (Eurocontrol), a university (Delft University of Technology) and four representatives of the users (Dutch Airline Pilot Association VNV, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, British Airways and Scandinavian Airlines System). The INTENT project finished in April 2003.
 
 

INTENT was a Research, Technology development and Demonstration (RTD) project aimed at the development of Critical Technologies, contributing to the work programme for Competitive and Sustainable Growth of the European Union.