Mitigation potential of environmental optimized aircraft trajectories: How to perform environmental optimization of aircraft trajectories impact in Europe

Air traffic management as currently under development by the Single European Sky ATM Research program SESAR has an important role to play in reducing environmental impact of aviation by means of green trajectories, in addition to the improvements to be derived from new aircraft and engine technologies. A comprehensive modelling approach is presented which allows identifying aircraft trajectories having a lower environmental impact compared to the fuel optimal solution. Algorithmic environmental change functions are introduced which allow determining impact of aircraft emission at a given position and time from standard meteorological forecast parameters. A case study for three city-pairs is presented using reanalysis meteorological data. Mitigation potential of environmentally optimized trajectory options is analyzed, using a set of different climate impact metrics identifying robust routing options. This study presents results for a multi-criteria environmental assessment of aircraft trajectories relying on an advanced MET service as developed within the Exploratory Research Project ATM4E (SESAR2020). This framework allows studying and characterizing changes in traffic flows due to environmental optimization, as well as studying trade-offs between distinct strategic measures.