Emitting less is not enough, the future of aviation lies in flying differently

Two identical aircraft can take off with the same fuel consumption and leave different weather footprints. The outcome depends not only on carbon dioxide emissions, but on how, when and where they operate within the airspace. Incorporating these variables into route planning opens the door to redesigning air activity to reduce its environmental impact.

For decades, the climate consequences of air transport have been associated almost exclusively with carbon dioxide (CO₂). Airspace design initiatives, such as Fly Clean in Spain, have driven more direct and efficient routes that reduce emissions. The progress towards climate neutrality in 2050 now broadens that view.
“CO₂ is not the whole impact of aviation. In fact, it represents more or less a third. The other two-thirds are non-CO₂ impacts according to some estimates, although it may vary depending on the model,” aerospace engineer María Cerezo Magaña, from the Carlos III University of Madrid (UC3M), explains to SINC. Cerezo Magaña, together with his colleague from the UC3M Aerospace Engineering department, Manuel Soler Arnedo, are part of the European multidisciplinary consortium RefMap. This initiative seeks to develop a digital platform capable of quantifying and optimizing the environmental scope of aviation – both aircraft and drones – at multiple scales. Within the framework of the project, his work seeks to reduce the footprint of commercial flights with a restructuring of the airspace. To this end, they incorporate climate criteria in the optimization of flight paths, in order to minimize both emissions and other effects associated with air transport.

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