Methods and systems for providing conditional estimated arrival times

A non-transitory computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions stored thereon that, when executed by a processing system, cause the processing system to:

• identify a first geographic location associated with a merge point for an approach to an airport associated with a flight plan for an aircraft, the flight plan including a point merge procedure en route to the airport, the point merge procedure comprising a sequencing route including a plurality of navigational reference points prior to the merge point;
• determine an alternative lateral trajectory for the aircraft from a second geographic location corresponding to a down path navigational reference point of the plurality of navigational reference points ahead of a current location of the aircraft along the sequencing route to the merge point;
• determine a conditional estimated arrival time for the aircraft reaching the merge point from the current location of the aircraft in accordance with the flight plan for a clearance prior to the second geographic location based at least in part on the alternative lateral trajectory;
• and
• broadcast, over a communications network using an avionics system onboard the aircraft, a message including the conditional estimated arrival time for the aircraft to an external computing system, wherein a flight management system (FMS) of the aircraft is configurable to automatically operate the aircraft to autonomously fly the alternative lateral trajectory to the merge point after updating the flight plan maintained at the FMS to include the alternative lateral trajectory in lieu of at least a portion of the sequencing route in response to a command to proceed directly to the merge point.

A system comprising:

• a monitoring computing system associated with an air traffic controller (ATC) external to an aircraft;
• a flight management system (FMS) to maintain a flight plan for the aircraft;
• and
• a processing system coupled to the FMS to provide a projected profile broadcasting service configurable to:
• identify a first geographic location associated with a merge point for an approach to an airport associated with the flight plan for the aircraft, the flight plan including a point merge procedure en route to the airport, the point merge procedure comprising a sequencing route including a plurality of navigational reference points prior to the merge point;
• determine an alternative lateral trajectory for the aircraft from a second geographic location corresponding to a down path navigational reference point of the plurality of navigational reference points ahead of a current location of the aircraft along the sequencing route to the merge point;
• determine a conditional estimated arrival time for the aircraft reaching the merge point from the current location of the aircraft in accordance with the flight plan for a clearance prior to the second geographic location based at least in part on the alternative lateral trajectory;
• and
• broadcast, over a communications network using an avionics system onboard the aircraft, a message including the conditional estimated arrival time for the aircraft to the monitoring computing system, wherein the FMS is configurable to automatically operate the aircraft to autonomously fly the alternative lateral trajectory to the merge point after updating the flight plan maintained at the FMS to include the alternative lateral trajectory in lieu of at least a portion of the sequencing route in response to a command to proceed directly to the merge point.