Dear Tunza Friends,

This is something interesting and serious enough to act upon by concerned authorities.

Key airports which are considered as hub like Dubai airport , London Heathrow airport , even Mumbai airport contribute to increase in carbon footprint due to inability to give landing clearance because of  congestion.

It is very common these days for aircraft to circulate in sky (awaiting landing clearance at destination airport) and burn fuel especially at peak times as slot congestion rises.

This has to do with capacity constraints amid increasing growth. The Dubai airport handled 50.98 million passengers last year, up 8% on 2010.

It's  a bigger problem when pilot is flying an A380 around for half an hour waiting to land, that's a considerable add-on cost (fuel cost) and increase in carbon footprint.

There has been a rapid rise in demand for airspace capacity in the past five years, which has led to congestion at Dubai International during peak periods. Evenings and early mornings tend to be the busiest times as flights criss-cross from Asia and Europe, although many flights operate in the middle of the night.

Authorities are aware of this and are tackling the issue at multiple levels.

In the meantime, Dubai Airports is engaging with various stakeholder to ensure air routes are decongested, bottlenecks are reduced and latent airspace capacity - much of UAE airspace is reserved for military use - is unlocked.

 
Do you know that planes circle for up to 55 hours a day over Heathrow, burning 190 tonnes of fuel and releasing 600 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

It really hurts to realize that fuel cost is wasted , air is polluted and carbon footprint is increasing till the authorities find solution to optimize the airspace.