Pilots Could Prevent Huge Quantities of Carbon Emissions Under a New Scheme Being Tested in Brisbane

Airservices Australia Chief Executive Officer, Greg Russell, has released a report on an enhanced flight path trial at Brisbane Airport that has reduced aircraft carbon emissions by 650 tonnes.

The ‘Brisbane Green Project’ is a world first trial of integrating Required Navigation Performance (RNP) aircraft approach and departure procedures into a busy international airport environment and was released to the global Air Traffic Control Community at its Annual Conference, ‘ATC Global’ in The Netherlands. A copy of the Stage One Report can be found at http://www.airservicesaustralia.com/reports.

Under RNP, suitably equipped aircraft fly existing flight paths with much greater precision utilizing the latest avionics and navigation systems.

Airservices Australia has worked closely with Qantas Airways (who have pioneered the introduction of the procedure into Australia), Naverus Incorporated (a United States based procedure design specialist), and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority of Australia (CASA) to achieve some promising results in the first 12 months of the trial.

These include:

• estimated cumulative savings in flight time of 4,200 minutes and distance flown of 17,300 nautical miles;
• estimated cumulative savings in jet fuel burn of about 200 tonnes;
• estimated carbon dioxide emission reductions of 650 tonnes;
• a reduction in the total aircraft noise footprint; and
• reduced traffic delays resulting from shorter arrivals for RNP aircraft.

“The trial at Brisbane Airport, which is the nation’s third busiest by passenger movements, clearly shows that the adoption of technologies available in today’s aircraft and by air traffic control organizations such as Airservices Australia can potentially deliver significant environmental benefits to the community and efficiencies to industry,” Mr Russell said.

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