The perception of environmental problems, especially global warming, is more than ever an issue, especially in this day and age when reaching agreements on today's climate targets is a challenge and a topic of concern among citizens of all ages. Associated effects of global warming, like extreme weather events, are driven primarily by the emission of exhaust gases (especially carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides and methane) and water vapor creating contrails. Hence, reducing emissions to preserve the environment, while keeping the air mobility, is a central society need now and in the future.
The flight trajectories are influenced on one hand by environmental and aircraft parameters, and on the other hand by air traffic control (ATC) driven parameters, like route length or usable altitudes. Thereby, to reduce the emissions in short and medium term, changes in flight trajectory design and ATC operations are one appropriate means.
The overall objective of GreAT is to reduce the fuel consumption and gas emissions during “gate-to-gate” flight phases through developing and accessing environment-friendly air traffic operational concepts, adaptive airspace structures and green trajectory optimization technologies, and supporting avionic systems. Evaluation campaigns between the European partners, combined with the Chinese partners through cross evaluations are intended to validate the proposed concept and to show a potential significant reduction of the aviation’s impact on climate change.
