Brussels, 18/06/2007 (Agence Europe) - After the “Open Skies” agreement, the EU and the United States have once again begun working together in civil aviation. On Monday, at the Le Bourget Aeronautical Exhibition, European Commission Vice-President and Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot and Administrator of the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Marion Blakey launched AIRE (Atlantic Interoperability Initiative to Reduce Emissions), a transatlantic scheme to reduce emissions from flights between the two continents. With aircraft industry representatives in attendance, Mr Barrot said that “the future of the aviation industry depends on its ability to combat climate change through innovation and greater efficiency”. He added that the EU and the US “want a sky open to aircraft but not to emissions”.
The joint AIRE initiative is consistent with the cooperation protocol signed by the Commission and the FAA to coordinate two major programmes on air traffic control infrastructure modernisation, SESAR in Europe and NEXTGEN in the United States. AIRE will make it possible to speed up the application of new technologies and operational procedures which will have a direct impact in the short and medium term on greenhouse gas emissions. The measures include "smooth" or "reduced engine" approaches (which will enable noise and exhaust gas emissions to be reduced during landing), experiments with which, carried out at Stockholm, Louisville and Atlanta, have shown substantial savings in fuel and CO2 and NOx emissions.
The plan adopted on Monday provides for action on three levels. At departure, ways of reducing plane emissions will be identified, for example, by reducing waiting time before take off, which would mean an increase in the time the plane is parked with engines switched off. Secondly, work will be done on flights over the ocean, by making route management more flexible. It is here that the new air traffic management systems (SESAR and NEXTGEN) will come into play, allowing, as they will, planes to change their flight path when they are behind a slower plane in the same air lane, or when weather conditions are bad. The aim is to make flights over the Atlantic take no more than five hours. Thirdly, the plan proposes to use smooth (reduced engine) approaches during landings, particularly to reduce noise. This measure will require some change to flight procedures. Trials carried out this year by Scandinavian company SAS have shown that, overall, the measures recommended could result in fuel savings of 400-500 kg per plane.
AIRE will be based on “gate to gate” test campaigns and experiments, which will make it possible to assess the new measures' environmental benefits and their operational and technical feasibility. Accordingly, the Commission and the FAA have ensured that this initiative is being undertaken with the close involvement of partners from the industry, such as the aircraft manufacturers Airbus and Boeing, the operators Air France-KLM, SAS, Delta and FEDEX, and providers of aviation navigation services such as IAA (Ireland), LFV (Sweden) and NAV (Portugal). In addition to being an agreement between two leading public institutions, AIRE is, therefore, a genuine partnership which brings together aviation players to achieve a common aim of environmental conservation.
The initial partnership will be expanded as best practices and new technologies spread in Europe and the United States. For the Commission, the air transport sustainable development strategy is based on a consistent three-pillared approach: - air traffic management, by means of SESAR or more generally the Single European Sky and initiatives such as AIRE; - technological development, through programmes such as Clean Sky or studies on the use of biofuels; - economic mechanisms for trading emission rights.
At Le Bourget, Mr Barrot pointed out that “the Commission is ensuring constant environmental awareness in the aviation sector. Our AIRE initiative is only one part of our three measures to make aviation greener. It supplements our proposal to include aviation in the emission rights trading system and the Clean Sky initiative launched by the Commission last week to support the development of the next generation of clean aircraft”. (aby/ol)