Latest ICB meeting focusses on environmental impact of ATM

Against a backdrop of increased political impetus through the Green Deal, and with COVID reducing traffic levels to a fraction of those experienced in 2019, the EC’s Industry Consultation Body met at the end of September to identify and implement measures which can deliver a more sustainable recovery and improved environmental performance.

The ICB Work Programme outlines a target to focus on minimising environmental impacts of ATM through predictive and optimum trajectory management, and to accelerate solutions and best practices. This includes prioritisation of R&D deployment activities. This should be achieved through a ‘state of play’ paper highlighting existing activities, and development of a position paper on environment.

ERA provided substantial feedback on activities that the association and the membership are engaged in, including but not limited to CCO/CDO, Ecolabel, boosting and increasing the uptake of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) as well as the ongoing work in the context of ESAR. The ERA sustainability paper published in June was also highlighted. Perfect flight initiatives were also raised as it was clear that these had demonstrated the improved environmental performance that could be gleaned from the system.

It was also noted that whilst a significant amount of work has been undertaken to improve flight trajectories through free route airspace, flight efficiency initiatives and dynamic airspace management; the capacity crunch of 2018/2019 had eroded some of this benefit as the network tried to balance the best use of the available capacity versus environmental performance.

The ICB recognised that further progress could be incentivised by the Commission to meet the ambition of the Green Deal. ERA recommended that candidates for this could include:

• boosting the production and uptake of SAFs in Europe;
• making Europe the centre of excellence for the development and production of SAFs;
• implementing a green incentive scheme for airlines and aircraft operators to replace older aircraft;
• increasing public funding and public co-funding rates for Civil Aviation Research and Innovation (Clean Aviation and SESAR);
• continued investment in the European Air Traffic Management system (ATM); and
• investment in sustainable airport and heliport infrastructure.

Finally, the ICB asked how digitalisation can support the environmental ambitions moving forwards. It was recognised that digitalisation will lead to modernisation and innovation of ATM activities. An example could be in weather management, where improved connectivity and deployment of applications such as for granting situational weather awareness to the cockpit could support better decision making, leading to safer and more economical flight routes.

The feedback received from all those present (including written inputs) are now being collocated and an ICB position on this topic is expected towards the end of the year.