Before the Greener Skies conference even starts, we have some news from the Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department. They have redesigned a piece of the airspace they control in a way that will shave 14 minutes off all flights arriving from Europe, Southern China, the Middle East and South East Asia. They are doing this by using new satellite-based navigation technology that will keep aircraft much closer to shore (red route) than the current route (yellow line) which takes them out over the South China Sea before landing in Hong Kong. Some numbers for you… the new flightpath will:

• Reduce each flight by 210 kilometres
• Be used by 150 flights per day, carrying 8 million passengers each year
• Save an annual 10 million kilometres in flight time

By my back-of-napkin calculations, this will reduce CO2 emissions by well over 100,000 tonnes each year.

The new routes start on 22 October. This is another great example of the small steps occurring across the world which really make a significant difference in aviation emissions. We’ll hear more about it when one of the executives from the Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department joins us tomorrow at Greener Skies 2009.