Improved air traffic control at airports worldwide could be the key to achieving significant greenhouse gas emission reductions within the aviation industry, according to a new study issued on February 1st, 2010.

Revising aircraft flight paths to ensure airliners fly between destinations in the most ergonomic way possible, minimising holding stacks and speeding up takeoff and landing processes are all techniques that could result in CO2 emissions dropping, and they could happen if flight management schemes were boosted, Oxford University researchers said.

What’s more – they could all be put in place relatively simply.

“The inaccuracy of current control systems means planes must be given a wide berth to avoid collisions”, Oxford-based Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment aviation professional, Dr Chris Carey, explained. “If that was improved, landing and take-offs could be quicker, stacking would be reduced and planes could fly closer together by taking advantage of prevailing winds, just as Concorde did.”

Air Traffic Control: Aviation Emissions

Overall, improvements made in terms of airport air traffic control could bring down aviation emissions by up to eight per cent.

Towards the end of 2009, plans were unveiled to hit a 2050 CO2 emissions target of 50 per cent below 2005 levels, and for the industry to, effectively, become carbon neutral (eliminating emissions by investing in carbon offsets) by 2020.

In related news, the environmental aspects of London Heathrow Airport’s planned third runway have come under fire from officials in London.

Heathrow’s third runway was approved in January 2009, but on the basis that noise and air pollution, and greenhouse gas emission levels, could all be kept low.

Airport Air Pollution

The owner of the UK’s flagship air travel hub – airport operating group BAA – plans to implement several mechanisms through which Heathrow Airport’s air pollution can be lowered, but, said the London Assembly, these wouldn’t be enough.

“Our investigation has raised grave concerns about some of these safeguards, including clear inadequacies in approaches to tackling air pollution levels around Heathrow”, chairman of the Assembly, Murad Qureshi, stated, adding: “We would also question whether the suggested noise benchmark is fit for purpose and if the aviation emissions targets are achievable.”

Runway 3 at London Heathrow Airport is set to open to airliner traffic in five years time.

“It's time for BAA to scrap Heathrow expansion”, Greenpeace representative Anna Jones urged. “A new runway would be too noisy, too dirty and pose too much of a threat to the climate.”

Air Traffic Control image courtesy of Jotron

See also:

Companies supplying Air Traffic Control Systems