Influence of airspace avoidance due to political and safety issues on flight efficiency and environment

Abstract

In the history of aviation there were many cases that led to the obligation or necessity to bypass certain airspaces, mainly due to political and safety reasons. One of the latest events is the incident over Belarusian airspace. The fundamental concept of the article is to examine the effects of the necessity to avoid certain airspaces by the operators, using the incident over Belarusian airspace as an example. Based on the observations of air traffic flow over affected region, route distance extension was calculated using the Horizontal Flight Efficiency method. Subsequent calculations include potential increase in flight time, fuel consumption, carbon dioxide emission and operating costs. The results were extrapolated to yearly amounts. based on the air traffic prediction reports. The air traffic prediction analysis as well as the results of the calculations and simulations indicate that the bypass of the airspaces on flight routes important to global economy, has a serious impact on the environment and operators’ budget due to increased aircraft’s fuel consumption resulting in growth of carbon dioxide emissions as well as operating costs. It also leads to deterioration in the European Airspace’s capacity, causing the necessity for Air Traffic Management units to reorganize the air traffic flow over the affected regions. Potential solutions mitigating the problem were also proposed.