Wind of change for flight paths

The remit was clear, even if it was never going to be simple. Emirates and Delta Airlines had been chosen for an IATA pilot project to trial new low-density flexible airspace (iFlex), and to demonstrate the potential savings in fuel, CO2 and cost by using the most efficient flight path.

The plan followed the ICAO resolution to introduce the concept of flexible air traffic management (ATM) as a strategic objective.

Delta’s flexible flight path was to be tested on the mainly oceanic route from Atlanta to Johannesburg, while for Emirates it would be one of the daily flights between Dubai and São Paolo, Brazil.

The Emirates’ route was always going to be a challenge as it crossed continental Africa and cut from east to west across the European traffic flow.

Emirates was chosen as it has been involved in the development of ‘flexible tracks’ for aircraft operations since 2003, initially with Airservices Australia and then in the Maldives, Indonesia and a number of other countries.

The basic principle is that the flights follow the optimum track by picking up tailwinds (jet streams) or avoiding headwinds and are not restricted to flying the fixed airways in the sky, as they may not be the most efficient routes.

At the end of 2010, Bob Everest, Emirates vice president flight operations support, set about bringing together all the different nation states whose airspace would be involved in the São Paulo test flight – all 34 of them.

Everest said: “Although IATA works closely with the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation (CANSO) many of the African nations are not members. I was trying to liaise with the 23 different ATC units involved in our route.”

Meetings were held in Dakar in January, Dubai in February and the third in the ICAO offices in Paris in March, to try to come to a resolution as to what routes would be flown and to prepare letters of agreement.

“The biggest achievement of the Dubai meeting was to get the nation states into one room,” said Everest. The attendees included the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mauritania, Senegal, Sudan and others.

“At first they were very cautious but became more open as the talks went on. However, it rapidly became apparent that the co-ordination involved would be impractical. Many of the airway structures in the Middle East and Africa were inefficient and not suitable for the route being proposed. In some cases they simply did not have the technology.”

Another difficulty was the sheer scope of the flexible flight paths.

Everest continued: “The winds in winter and summer are completely different and made the flexible flights, particularly outbound from Brazil, range across a massively wide area of Africa.”

So the concept changed. Instead of running one demonstration flight using flexible routing, suddenly Everest and his team were working on how to make the airway structures across Africa and the Middle East more efficient, an essential building block before iFlex routing could be introduced.

Everest added: “Initially we met with Sudan. We paid for a meeting in Johannesburg, then one in Khartoum and finally in Abu Dhabi with representatives from Saudi Arabia. We established a new route that will save us 100 nautical miles on every flight. Those meetings cost Emirates around Dhs44,000, but give potential savings of 1,600kg of fuel per flight. We are looking at a weekly saving of approximately 35,000kg of fuel, which is a reduction in CO2 emissions of around 110,250kg. This figure will increase with the launch of the Rio de Janeiro flights in January and if we extend our West Africa services.”

In total, Emirates has worked out 20 new airway structures and is in the process of implementing them. Five were opened in October, seven more in November and five are due to come on line in January. Political upheaval in the region has had an impact and the team is still working on three routes, which have been affected by the ‘Arab Spring’, with airspace closed in countries including Libya.

As they open, the new routes Emirates is developing across the continent are available to all carriers operating in the region, saving emissions on a much wider basis.

Everest concluded: “What started as an evaluation of iFlex for one flight for one city pair has become the creation of multiple iFlex routes that will serve West Africa as well as South America, reducing the carbon footprint of Emirates and other operators in the region. It has provided a daily carbon emission reduction, which will have a much greater impact in both short and long term.

“The airlines and IATA have to give credit to the African countries which have worked with us, which have adopted these policies and which are actively looking at how they can improve.

“Their positive attitude has allowed us to put in this essential building block in a stepped approach towards out eventual aim of flexible flight paths.”

Delta completed the iFlex text flight in July, flying from Atlanta to Johannesburg. IATA reported a 2% saving on fuel, matching IATA’s projected saving on ultra-long-haul routes throughout the world. IATA projects that, once implemented, iFlex could save 365,000kgs of fuel per year on the Sao Paulo route, which equates to 1,149,750kg of CO2.

Emirates is implementing the strategy elsewhere and has developed close relationships with Canada, Iceland and Russia over the years to obtain maximum flexibility on the polar routes for more efficiency.

Etihad Airways is also working on flexible flight paths and recently announced reduced carbon by nine tonnes on two flights from Australia to Abu Dhabi.

James Hogan, Etihad Airways’ CEO, said: “The fuel savings and reduced carbon emissions made by these flights are potentially hugely beneficial for both the aviation industry and the environment. 

“In recent years, the technological advances made in aircraft navigation systems have been enormous. Aircraft are no longer reliant on ground-based systems but use advanced navigation systems based on the GPS satellite constellations.

“This allows aircraft to fly an infinitely variable number of different routes between two points, subject to the agreement and approval of air traffic service providers. If similar savings were possible just once each week for flights between Abu Dhabi and Australia, we conservatively estimate an annual reduction in carbon emissions of some 1,100 tonnes and a saving of 350 tonnes of fuel. This would represent a reduction of more than four tonnes of carbon on every flight.”

The flights were operated over routes Emirates and Etihad have developed with India, Sri Lanka, and Maldives to get better efficiencies and as a continuation of the flex programme in the Indian Ocean. The new segments were opened in November and are used by both airlines.