Six months into the start of EUROCONTROL MUAC’s new ECO Service, over 100 airlines are already accessing modified routes proposed by MUAC to reduce flight emissions. The service is a new addition to the Pre-Flight Check (PFC) process deployed three years ago, to improve punctuality and flight efficiency.
The ECO Service targets all greenhouse gas emissions while also taking into account reserved airspace for military activities, network constraints and flight schedules. The environmental data is estimated by the Advanced Emissions Model (AEM) developed and maintained by EUROCONTROL’s Aviation Sustainability Unit in the EUROCONTROL Innovation Hub (Brétigny/France). Through advanced algorithms, AEM processes flight trajectories on a flight-byflight basis to estimate the amount of fuel burn and related exhaust emissions including carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, water vapour, the oxides of nitrogen and sulphur, unburnt hydrocarbons and particulate matters. This identifies the routes with a smaller environmental impact, enabling MUAC to propose these to participating airlines on a daily basis, taking care to exclude those that conflict with other network priorities.
Integrating environmental data into MUAC’s operational processes is the result of many months of detailed analysis. The environmental measurements had to be interpreted in an operational context and to be actionable by operational staff. “We needed to be able to estimate flight emissions before we could think about improving them,” says John Santurbano, Director of EUROCONTROL MUAC. “We achieved that at the end of 2022 and ran a live trial to test the reaction of the airlines. As we hoped, they welcomed the initiative and uptake is currently around 25% of the opportunities we propose.” Reduced flight emissions are frequently associated with a shorter flight duration and lower costs which also helps to promote the concept.
Still in the trial phase and yet to achieve full coverage and resourcing, the MUAC ECO Service has already delivered more than 2,640 eco proposals, each generating flight emissions savings.
Flight emissions are a new feature in airline flight planning, where cost, punctuality and efficiency drive the planning process. Aircraft operators have further complex trade-offs to consider: selecting a route with the lowest environmental impact needs to be weighed against other flight criteria and costs including flight duration, flight connections and the potential increase in route charges incurred if the flight enters a different flight information region.
Similarly, the key performance indicators set by the European Commission to assess air navigation service providers (ANSPs)’ productivity measure output in terms of safety, capacity, cost efficiency and, for the environment, horizontal flight efficiency. Since the environmental topic is more than just horizontal flight efficiency, MUAC is a pioneer in this area and is unique in offering its ECO Service. It is also supporting its roll out at other air navigation service providers as part of a wider ambition to be proactive in making the switch to tackling flight emissions.
MUAC works closely with the EUROCONTROL Network Manager and neighbouring air navigation service providers. Routes proposed as part of the Pre-Flight Check that impact adjacent airspace are first agreed with neighbouring air navigation service providers before their release to the airlines’ operations centres. Leveraging decades of close cooperation between MUAC and neighbouring partners, John Santurbano anticipates that more facilities could be ready to operate an ECO Service within the next 12 months.