Today (Sunday, 4 December 2011) a Fly Emirates ‘green’ flight will touch down at the King Shaka Airport at 5pm. This is an Indian Ocean strategic partnership to reduce emission initiative, aptly named INSPIRE, of which the Air Traffic and Navigation Services (ATNS) is an active partner.
The United Arab Emirates special envoy and assistant minister of foreign affairs for energy and climate change, Dr Sultan Al Jaber, and his entourage will be on board.
Upon arrival, Dr Al Jaber is expected to be met by a team of high level government representatives. The ATNS CEO, Patrick Dlamini, ATNS board of directors as well as ATNS executives will be in attendance.
The objectives of INSPIRE is to promote recommended flight procedures, practices and services that have the potential to provide efficiencies in fuel and emissions reductions across all phases of flight, from gate-to-gate. Participating airlines and other stakeholders in the region are facilitating worldwide interoperability of environmentally friendly measures and standards by providing a systematic approach to ensure appropriate mitigation actions with short, medium and long-term results.
The first INSPIRE demonstration flight was coordinated by ATNS and the Air Services Australia and took place between Perth and Johannesburg on 11 March 2011.
In the past week, ATNS hosted a three day INSPIRE workshop that ended on Thursday, in Stellenbosch, Western Cape.
Several major global airline companies and aviation organisations namely, Airport Authority of India; Air-Services Australia; Emirates Airlines, Singapore Airlines; Etihad Airways; Virgin Australia, Qantas Airlines, Abu Dhabi Airport Company; Oman Civil Aviation Affairs; Maldives Airports Company and the International Air Transport Association(IATA) were represented.
This intensive workshop reviewed the results of the green demonstration flights undertaken during 2011. A work programme has been developed for 2012. Also discussed was the INSPIRE strategic plan (available on request).
Saving our environment
ATNS’ operations have always been characterised by very high standards of technical and engineering services. The technology infrastructure is constantly being maintained, upgraded and augmented to further increase efficiencies and effectiveness (optimum trajectories and reduced carbon dioxide emissions).