5 February 2018
Free Route: in 2017 fuel saved and reduction of CO2 emission
New traffic attracted to Italian airspace
Rome, 5 February 2017 – In 2017, airlines that flew over the skies of Italy saved approximately 30 million kg of fuel with a lower emission of CO2 into the atmosphere of about 95 million kg.
Considering an average cost of jet fuel of € 0.74 per kg, the benefit to carriers exceeded 22 million euro.
This important result was achieved thanks to the Free Route procedures implemented by ENAV – first among the largest European service providers - whereby all aircraft flying over Italian airspace at an altitude exceeding 11,000 metres, can choose a direct path without having to follow the route network.
ENAV’s CEO Roberta Neri stated: These figures demonstrate the Company's ability to relentlessly seek and deliver innovative solutions and to create value, with the aim of providing benefits for our customers, our stakeholders, the environment and the entire sector. In order to deploy Free Route, we invested in technology and in training our air traffic controllers, who confirmed their strong professionalism. We are already working on lowering the Free Route altitude to 9,000 metres by the summer, almost 4 years earlier than indicated in the European directive.
Thanks to the significant benefits of planning shorter routes and, given the excellent performance provided by ENAV in terms of punctuality and quality of service, in 2017 a number of new routes began crossing the Italian airspace:
There are also many other flights that increased the frequency they flew over Italy in 2017
as well their average distance. For example: