Historically, aviation’s biggest environmental issues have been associated with airports - noise and, increasingly local air quality.

However, there is an emerging view that aviation's single biggest environmental challenge is that of mitigating its effects on climate change.

Management of ATM operations is seen as one of the means by which aviation’s climate change and airport-related impacts could be reduced in the future. More efficient flight profiles, a fully optimised route network and more advanced noise abatement arrival and departure procedures should help to reduce noise, fuel burn, greenhouse gas emissions and flight times. After all, society wants both to travel and to minimise environmental impact.

If you care to read further, you will gain a better idea of what ATM in general, and EUROCONTROL in particular, can do to achieve these goals.