Southwest Airlines has rolled out a new set of guidelines for
flight paths and landings for its aircraft at 11 airports that
has resulted in fuel savings of five to 15 percent per flight.
The new guidelines called Required Navigation Performance (RNP)
could be introduced to all airports and airlines in the coming
years. The RNP procedures change flight patterns in two major
ways: they allow aircraft to track much tighter flight paths
than current traffic control systems require and they also call
for a continuous glide down to landing opposed to the
punctuated, step-down approach mainly used. These seemingly
small tweaks have added up to major fuel savings -- already
saving Southwest $11 million in fuel costs a year just at the
initial 11 airports and could save up to $60 million a year when
extended to all of its airports. In an industry that accounts
for two percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, those fuel
savings will also amount to a nice reduction in emissions. GE
Aviation has been testing RNP tech