# Safety Evaluation Method and Management Strategy for Aviation Flight Plans
## 6 Conclusions  
At present, the management of flight plans is extensive and lacks a quantitative basis for its evaluation, adjustment, and optimization. The main considerations of flight planning are profitability and time maximization, but flight safety is seldom considered. In relation to at this situation, this work proposes a quantitative method for the evaluation of flight plan safety based on four-dimensional tracking operations, and it addresses the corresponding flight plan management strategies. The conflict identification and safety index quantification models corresponding to the conflicts between aircrafts and the surrounding airspace environment, as well as to conflicts between multiple aircrafts, are also established. The performance of the proposed method is also demonstrated through an illustrative air traffic scenario of five aircrafts.  
The proposed flight plan optimization method is advantageous in that it can effectively reduce an aircraft's risk of conflict in the strategic stage, thereby improving the efficiency of the airspace utilization and enhancing the overall level of the air traffic safety. At the same time, air traffic safety assurance can be advanced to the flight planning and adjustment  
Figure 11: Conflict diagram of aircraft E and aircraft A.  
Figure 10: Schematic of aircraft conflict among aircraft B, C, and D.  
stage in order to promote the safety assurance of the aircraft before its takeoff, quantify the aircraft safety indicators, and reduce the burden of the real-time conflict detection and resolution tasks. The achievements of this study are expected to provide assistance for air traffic management departments, and they are of great significance in assuring air transport safety.  
One of the shortcomings of this model is that it does not take into account the changes in the areas that are affected by the weather. The combination of weather changes and flight plan management should be the focus of a future study. Furthermore, the method is addressed under the framework of a four-dimensional tracking operation, which a next-generation transport system, so the data in the case analysis are abstracted from the real flying data instead of the real flight plans. In future research, we hope to conduct analyses using the flight plan data of airports that are carrying out four-dimensional tracking operations.  
Conceptualization, Y.Z. and S.H.; methodology, S.H.; validation, J.Y.; resources, Y.Z.; writing--original draft preparation, J.Y. and S.H.; writing--review and editing, R.L.; visualization, J.Y.; supervision, S.H. and R.L.; funding acquisition, S.H. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.  
This research was funded by [National Nature Science Foundation of China] grant number [No. 52102410], [2023 Basic Research Plan program of Guangzhou] grant number [No. SL2023A04J00686], [Young Innovative Talents Project of General Colleges and Universities of Guangdong Province] grant number [No. 2021 KQNCX073], [Climbing Program of College students of Guangdong Province] grant number [No. pdjh2022b0396].  
The data used to support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.  
The authors acknowledge the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions.  
The authors declare no conflict of interest.