As traffic grows steadily, the environmental impacts of air transport become an increasing problem. The ERAT project is aiming to develop operational solutions that reduce the impact of air traffic on environment in the vicinity of airports. The objective is to minimise noise, emissions and the impact on local air quality due to air traffic in the airport TMA, whilst assuring an increase of or at least no adverse effects on airport capacity.

Isolated solutions developed in related research projects such as Sourdine II and OPTIMAL, as well as new new solutions, will be combined into a concept of operations. To accomplish these goals, operational solutions in terms of departure and approach procedures and routing will be developed and evaluated as part of a concept of operations at two European airports. The development of enabling technology is part of this process. The target time frame for the operational implementation of the ERAT proposed concept of operations is 2015 and beyond.