Last Friday was a busy day for my colleagues in New Zealand and on the West Coast of the USA, as the first-ever ASPIRE flight took off. ASPIRE stands for Asia and South Pacific Initiative to Reduce Emissions, and the primary actors are the ANSPs Airways New Zealand, Air Services Australia, and the Federal Aviation Administration. Airlines Air New Zealand, United Airlines and Qantas, along with Boeing and the airports involved, are also partners in the project. Friday’s demonstration flight from Auckland to San Francisco enabled the ASPIRE partners to get a clearer understanding of the potential fuel savings to be made.

Essentially, the flight was the first to combine the various advances that have been made over the past few years in routing aircraft through the sky, from User Preferred Routes to Continuous Descent Approaches. This ‘gate-to-gate’ concept offers the potential for airlines to save millions of tons of CO2 once it is fully rolled out. Friday’s flight saved an estimated 4600 litres of fuel – around 4% of the flight’s loading.

The Airways New Zealand website has some excellent information on the various phases of the green flight. The comparison between what used to happen and what took place on Friday is particularly interesting. For some news coverage of the ‘green flight’, Television New Zealand has an article and related video.

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