Air traffic control improvements

One area that is being explored to improve flying in the future - that may not be as immediately obvious as other initiatives such as more fuel-efficient aircraft - is improvements in air traffic control systems and management.

With thousands of planes travelling round the world every day the job of making sure all these aircraft travel safely and on time is a big one.

Many believe that by simplifying existing air traffic control arrangements a significant proportion of climate change emissions could be reduced by planes flying on more efficient routes. This would mean the planes use less fuel in flight and ultimately generate less climate change emissions per flight.

Both the International Air Transport Association and many airlines themselves have called for simplifying existing arrangements. In fact, the International Panel on Climate Change estimates that up to 12% of CO2 emissions from aviation caused by eliminated by addressing airspace and airport inefficiencies.

One of the initiatives that could form part of this saving is the Single European Sky project. This aims to combine all EU member countries' air traffic control arrangements into one, more efficient, EU-wide system.

Further information

EUROCONTROL – the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation
www.eurocontrol.int