U.S.-European plan seeks to cut emissions of trans-Atlantic flights

Jun. 19--PARIS -- Airplane makers, airline companies and aviation officials want to make the wild blue yonder a little greener.

Monday at the Paris Air Show, the Federal Aviation Administration and the European Commission announced a plan to cut the emissions of commercial jets flying across the Atlantic Ocean.

Although the program might be good news for the environment, it could also be a welcome development for passengers.

That's because the new Atlantic Interoperability Initiative to Reduce Emissions, or AIRE, will focus initially on making air traffic control much more efficient on both sides of the pond.

That means less time spent taxiing on a runway waiting to take off and less time spent circling an airport waiting to land.

And the first batch of upgrades shouldn't take long to put in place, said Marion Blakey, administrator of the FAA.

"AIRE will capitalize on known, existing technologies and best practices," she said.

Joseph Kolshak, vice president of operations at Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines Inc., said during the news conference that when Delta tested a similar makeover at air traffic control at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the busiest in the world, the benefits to passengers were clear.

He said the company cut the average delay time of every flight by three minutes.

All those minutes added together gave Delta the option of launching an additional three flights per day.

"Reducing delays also means that our passengers are getting to their destination sooner, the aircraft is burning less fuel, which obviously saves money and reduces greenhouse gas emissions," he said. "It also increases departure rates, which relieves congestion."

Laura Brown, a spokeswoman for the FAA, said American Airlines is not yet part of the formal AIRE group. But, she said, the carrier has been working with the FAA on many of the same improvements on its domestic flights and could eventually join AIRE.

"They certainly have really been a part of what we're doing in Dallas/Fort Worth," she said.

Aviation analyst Scott Hamilton said the push for greater fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas reductions might be great news for the environment and for passengers.

But that's not why the movers and shakers of the aerospace world were gathered in a hot, stuffy room in Paris in June, he said.

"I don't for a moment think that the airlines or even the manufacturers are doing this out of the altruistic global warming scenario," Mr. Hamilton said.

"It's a way to avoid further costs to the airlines, which in some form or another wind up hurting the manufacturers."

European taxes on polluting airliners and growing jet fuel bills were the real motivators, he said.

Nor does Mr. Hamilton think passengers will ultimately care much about the environmental benefits of the new initiative.

But they will appreciate getting to their destinations faster.

"There's certainly no question about it," he said. "But I doubt that a passenger who is sitting on the tarmac at D/FW who is waiting for the air traffic control to clear the runway in New York is saying, 'If only we had an efficient environmental policy.' "

Even so, the presenters in Paris insisted the new AIRE program is the best way to quickly shrink the environmental footprint of the aviation industry.

Scott Carson, president and chief executive of Boeing Co.'s commercial planes division, called more efficient air traffic control "the lowest-hanging fruit that can make a huge difference that doesn't require us to spend a decade developing new technology."

Boeing's chief competitor, Airbus, is also one of the initial partners in the AIRE program.

Not long before the news conference, Airbus' mammoth double-decker jet, the A380, flew over the tens of thousands of attendees at the show, executing remarkably sharp banks and climbs for a plane that looks like a whale with wings.