European airports are committed to net zero carbon emissions by 2050, raising sustainable operations up the agenda. Environmental impact covers many areas including noise, air quality, biodiversity and water management and further research is required in the definition of specific and measurable environmental performance indicators which can be considered as appropriate for use in the airport operations decision-making process.

This candidate solution aims to integrate environmental considerations into the overall airport operations management process and improve environmental efficiency by exploiting environmental parameters in support of strategic or tactical decision-making. It aims to integrate these parameters (performance and restrictions) into the airport operations plan (AOP) in planning, monitoring, execution and post-operations phases. Local and/or network-based business intelligence, machine learning and ‘what-if’ scenarios may support this process and will be evaluated to determine where they can increase overall benefits. The candidate solution will also define suitable ways to display such information along with appropriate alerting mechanisms.

The candidate solution will identify events that could trigger pre-tactical and tactical decisions during the pre-tactical phase - assessing the risk of threshold overshoot (noise, emissions, etc.) - and during the tactical phase by adjusting the pre-tactical forecast to the actual situation.

Regulatory authorities and trade organisations such as Airports Council International have a role to play in promoting the incorporation of environmental performance criteria into the total airport management performance-based approach.

BENEFITS

Improved environmental efficiency