European Continuous Climb and Descent Operations Action Plan

These operations are carried out by aircraft operators but are enabled by airspace and procedural design and facilitated by Air Traffic Control. All parties need to work collaboratively together in order to generate the benefits.

EUROCONTROL has worked with a large number of stakeholders, including airlines, airports and air navigation service providers, to produce the European CCO/CDO Action Plan. This includes practical advice on how to make CCO/CDO work, with examples of best practices and how constraints can be overcome, building on the extensive experience Europe already has on optimising the efficiency of vertical flight profiles. The principles of the Action Plan have already been utilised this summer by DFS, the German ATC provider and by Lufthansa in their development of the ‘Efficient Flight Profile Concept’, bringing tangible benefits for the airline and for the environment.

Training is a vital element in the implementation of CCO/CDO and the deliverables detailed in the Action Plan include the release of ATCO refresher training on CCO/CDO and the development of computer based training for pilots, both harmonised to demonstrate best practices.

A 2018 study from EUROCONTROL showed that the benefit from optimising the climb and descent phases included fuel savings of up to 350,000 tonnes per year for the airlines. This corresponds to over a million tonnes of CO₂ and €150 million in fuel costs.

These benefits come from minimising the time that aircraft spend flying level at low altitudes, where more fuel is burnt than at high altitudes. The focus is on the descent phase – where the potential benefits are ten times those relating to the climb phase.

Details of how much benefit is being achieved at individual airports can be found in our performance dashboard.

The Action Plan includes:

• harmonised definitions and metrics for measuring European CCO/CDO performance;
• results of the first Europe-wide analysis of CCO/CDO with an estimation of the fuel / noise benefit pool that could be achieved by optimising CCO/CDO;
• development of a CCO/CDO monthly updated performance dashboard for all airports/airlines in Europe;
• release of an ATCO refresher training on CCO/CDO and aircraft energy management;
• new proposals for ATCO and Flight Crew training objectives on CCO/CDO;
• delivery of the online European CCO/CDO Tool Kit;
• enhanced guidance in airspace and procedure design to facilitate CCO and CDO;
• the sharing of good practices and case studies on CDO implementation, performance monitoring and collaboration.

The Plan and its individual annexes are available for download below.