SAS, LFV and green approaches
SAS, LFV and Green Approaches
SAS Group is the Nordic region's largest listed airline and travel group, offering air transport and related services from its base in Northern Europe.
LFV (Luftfartsverket) is a Swedish state-owned enterprise. It operates 16 airports in Sweden, between them handling around 30 million passengers each year, as well as the country’s air traffic control system.
Did you know?
- At Sweden's largest airport Stockholm/Arlanda the Swedish Air Navigation Service Provider, LFV, together with SAS are performing so called Green Approaches.
- Since early 2006 more than 1500 Green Approaches have been made and the results show that each approach can save up to 100-150 kg of fuel.
- At this point in time Green Approaches are performed in low traffic but LFV and SAS are now working to introduce Green Approaches in denser traffic at Arlanda in order to increase even more the environmental benefits .
What are we doing?
- The Green Approach is an Advanced-Continous Descent Approach (A-CDA) that allows aircraft to do an idle descent onto the runway threshold following a P-RNAV STAR.
- Whilst the environmental benefits are obvious, the approach currently can only be performed in low traffic, which does not maximise the positive impact on the environment.
- However, what separates Green Approaches at Arlanda from many other trials is that the aircraft Flight Management System data, i.e. the 4 dimensional trajectory, is used by the Air Traffic Controller to set up the arrival sequence.
- This data is believed to be a key-enabler for introducing the A-CDA/Green Approaches in busier traffic. Development and research is now ongoing and LFV will, through simulations and real implementations of the Green Approach concept, try to take it one step further in the environmental development for ATM.
What are the results?
- As mentioned above, the 1500 Green Approaches that have so far been undertaken show a decrease in fuel burn during the descent phase.
- The decrease equals 100-150 kg depending on the flight path into Arlanda which corresponds to a saving in carbon dioxide of up to 314-474 kg per approach.
- It is interesting to note that this saving corresponds to around 3% of the total emissions of an average domestic flight in Sweden. If this was to be enabled for all SAS aircraft into Arlanda, it would mean a saving of up to 5,400 tons of fuel and 17,600 tons of carbon dioxide on a yearly basis. This might not be achievable in the near term but definitely something worth striving for in the medium to long term.