In the second of a series considering the topic of climate change from different viewpoints within the EU aviation community, Air Traffic Management had the opportunity to speak with Michael Kraft, who is Senior Manager Environment & Policy with DFS.
As with all these discussions, we began with the topic of green flying. At the simplest level, green flying is a ‘must for the future’ and the biggest challenge/threat our industry currently faces. We are moving ahead, but we must move faster.
In order to move faster, regulation needs to play a role in this planning. Today ANSPs have regulations to address noise abatement. These regulations are potentially a direct conflict of interest in reducing CO2. Regulators need to develop CO2 focused regulation and provide the prioritisation guidelines for ANSPs to abide by. Another topic requiring regulation is the discussion around contrails. Contrails potentially have a bigger impact on the climate than CO2. When developing flight routing, ANSPs would benefit from official guidance as to how to prioritise these topics in relation to each other.
DFS also shares some insight as to addressing contrails when it comes to flying in alpine regions. A project called the Alpine Weather Procedure was developed by the four ANSPs (DFS, Skyguide, ENAV, Austro Control) who are managing flights flying over the Alps to work more closer together on weather related topics.
The industry needs to be sharing information and working collaboratively to move faster to address climate change. Although there are now objectives in place with a target of 2050, this isn’t fast enough. How could we move these topics into a shorter lead time? Michael Kraft has some ideas.
Please join us next week for a discussion with a second Air Navigation Service Provider - Oro Navigacija.
