The present study deals with ground-based prediction of en-route wake turbulence encounters in the European airspace. Due to an increasing overall volume of air traffic with required navigation performance within highly congested en-route airspaces, wake turbulence encounters above flight level 100 are becoming more frequent during the last years. The prediction of en-route wake vortex encounters provides information about airspaces with an increased encounter probability as well as specific characteristics of potential encounters. Apart from safety-related benefits, this information may be applied during flight-and capacity planning processes. Two different types of models are coupled with each other: an air traffic flow management model and a wake vortex decay and transport model. The results provide information about the predicted number of en-route encounters, dominant spatial encounter configurations and their locations.
