The dramatic drop in air traffic over the past year has enabled regulators in the UK and Canada to implement a new system that will—at least for now—eliminate the tracked routes across the Atlantic that planes are assigned to and instead assign them to paths based on “optimum route, speed and trajectory.”
The new plan, to be implemented on days when Nats and Nav Canada, the two regulators feel it’s safe. The system is based on analysis by a team of researchers at England’s Reading University who tracked all flights on the route over a three-month period and compared the flight paths with tracks that exploited the high-altitude jetstream. The team calculated that using nature over maps could cut fuel burn and emissions by up to 16%.
Given most experts belief that it will be several years before flying reaches its pre-pandemic density again, the new system may be in effect for quite a while. Its fuel and emission savings come on top of a double dip: Fewer planes mean less fuel and emissions, and the pandemic has been an opportunity for airlines to fly their newest and most efficient planes on many routes, retiring or mothballing many older and less-efficient planes.
