Aircraft air pollutant emissions in Greek airports

Abstract

During recent years special attention has been paid to various environmental impacts from aircraft emissions. The effects become more important considering the present situation in the air traffic sector and future expectations for higher air travel demands. In this paper the evolution of aircraft air pollutant emissions in Greek airports from 1980 to 2005 is analysed. The estimation of emissions, based on the EMEP/CORINAIR methodology, takes into account all flight categories (domestic, international, scheduled, charters) and all aircraft types used in civil aviation in Greece. Emissions are estimated for Landing and Take Off (LTO) cycles. Estimations cover 38 airports used by civil aviation and show a high increase of emissions, which followed the high increase of air traffic in all Greek airports. Total flights increased by 2.4 times from 1980 to 2006. Athens airport has the higher contribution to total air traffic, as well in total emissions, but with decreasing trend (59.0% in 1980 - 42.2% in 2005). Thessaloniki and Iraklion airports follow with increasing share (6.3 - 11.7% and 6.8 - 9.8% respectively). Changes in aircraft fleet composition together with changes of each airport contribution in total civil aviation traffic influenced the increase rates of each air pollutant. NOx emissions showed higher increase rates than air traffic, while VOC and CO emissions showed lower increase rates. Average per flight emissions from 1980 to 2005 have shown increased trend for NOx, decreased trend for VOC and CO and almost stable per flight emissions for SO2 and PM2.5.