Europe to track planes with GPS

March 24, 2009|Associated Press

BRUSSELS - A new air traffic-control system designed to double the number of planes over Europe while cutting flight times and airport congestion was put into operation by the continent's aviation agency yesterday.

The system is meant to eliminate the necessity for planes to travel along "air lanes" corresponding to lines of ground-based radio beacons.

Using global-positioning systems that track planes, the new system will eliminate the reliance on the radio beacons. Instead of placing a flight into an air lane, an air traffic controller can pick from a wide variety of routes between airports.

By increasing the number of flights in the air while reducing wait times over airports, the new technology will save airlines about 5 billion a year in wasted fuel, according to the agency, Eurocontrol. It is also meant to increase safety.

It will also allow for "continuous descent approaches," a technique whereby the aircraft essentially glide down to the runway from their cruise altitude, rather than face a series of step-down descents and speed changes. Experts say this too would save significant quantities of fuel.