Environment
- Environment Home
- E-Change Program
- Audit
- Aircraft Emissions
- Management of Aircraft on the Ground
- Predicting and Managing Delays
- Monitoring Australia's Airspace
- Continuous Descent Approaches
- Green Approaches
- Flextracks
- Computer Simulation
- Airspace Management from Gate to Gate
- The Benefits of Gate to Gate Management
- How Air Traffic Management has Traditionally Worked
- Some Causes for Airport Delays
- The Brisbane Green Project
- The Challenge of Growth
- What is RNP?
- Environmental Savings from the Brisbane Green Project
- Sequencing Efficiency
Continuous Descent Approaches
Air Traffic Management assists aircraft in making a safe and efficient descent to the destination airport.
Continuous Descent Approaches reduce fuel consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and aircraft noise.
Landing procedures have traditionally involved aircraft descending in successive steps from cruising altitudes to the runway. In a continuous descent approach the aircraft flies from cruise altitude all the way down to the runway in one smooth and uninterrupted descent. Under ideal circumstances a plane can practically glide into the airport with engines idling. This descent can last anything up to 20 minutes.
Early trials have demonstrated that a continuous descent approach can save as much as 400 kg of fuel per arrival, depending on aircraft size, weather and other air traffic conditions. This means more than a tonne of CO2 reductions per flight.
Around busy airports in congested airspace this can actually be difficult to achieve and is made more complicated by bad weather.