The Chairman of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation group (APEC) Transport Ministers meeting recently announced that the 21 APEC economies, which represent more than a third of the world’s population, have agreed to work cooperatively on practical measures to reduce aviation greenhouse gas emissions.

Mr Mark Vaile, Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, said that he was delighted that the APEC economies have taken this important step in combating the effects of greenhouse gas emissions on climate change.

“Yesterday Australia announced a range of measures to reduce aviation greenhouse emissions including improving fuel efficiency through more flexible flight tracks, improving aircraft air traffic control sequencing to reduce fuel burn/emissions, more efficient runway use and continuous descent approaches which minimize speed changes.

“These measures will reduce aviation greenhouse gas emissions by hundreds of thousands of tonnes,” Mr Vaile said.

“These measures, as far as the aviation industry is concerned, include improving fuel efficiency through more flexible flight paths. So, in designing flight paths for large aircraft, we should be mindful not just of the ease of operation, as far as the flight path controllers, are concerned, but also factor into that how we can make it more efficient for those aircraft to operate at particular altitudes and burn less fuel. Burn less fuel; emit fewer greenhouse gases.

“The second measure is improving air traffic control sequencing to reduce fuel burn emissions, particularly in domestic circumstances across Australia and regional circumstances where, if there is at the port of destination a bit of a line-up of traffic, don’t let the aircraft depart the port of embarkation. Before you know, as soon as it arrives at the destination, it can land. So it’s not going into holding patterns.

“So you minimize the hours to what is absolutely necessary for that flight sequencing in the system. And so you don’t get everybody in the air and then have a dozen planes flying in holding patterns above airports and, you know, burning fuel and more emissions. So better management and sequencing of flight control is quite significant.

“And then voluntary airline and airport management measures for reducing emissions. Obviously, we need not just to have air traffic control and the on-ground management of aircraft at airports, but there needs to be co-operation amongst the airline operators, in terms of how they manage their own operations, how they manage their use of their slots at different airports.

“So we want to – obviously, there’s a lot of stakeholders involved in this – move forward and focus on how we can reduce the fuel burn and therefore reduce the emissions. Reducing the fuel burn is obviously in the interests of the airline operators because it makes them much more cost effective. But it brings an extra focus into the whole management of air traffic.

It can only be hoped that regulators and stakeholders in other parts of the world are also looking at ways in which these issues can be tackled in a co-operative manner.

Submitted by Barbara Walsh-Kumm www.onlinetravelconsultant.com