After 20 years of working on the development and deployment of this technology, I am greatly encouraged to see the acceleration of interest and activity across the globe in recent weeks.  What is really interesting is the breadth of activity both in terms of geography and the variety of stakeholders who are initiating the activity.  I have collected a sample of headlines from online news just to illustrate my point:

First, it is really interesting to see a resourceful city in Canada working to bring airline service to their airport by offering to underwrite costs for RNP procedures used by WestJet: City commits $350,000 to navigational software if WestJet comes to town via The Source

It is a great relief to see the approval of RNP AR procedures at New York’s JFK airport.  It is, of course, good news for jetBlue, but in time it is expected that this will provide relief for international carriers operating to JFK who are quite capable of RNP AR operations and have multiple deployments around the globe, such as Qantas and Emirates: JetBlue A320s use RNP approaches at New York JFK via ATW Online

After a lot of work by the stakeholders of India, the very first PBN procedure was recently inaugurated by Indigo airlines at Cochin airport in the south of India: IndiGo A320 makes India’s first RNP approach landing via ATW Online  

The changes in navigation and the future upgrade plans of the FAA have begun to capture the interest of the popular media and larger population.  USA Today has a regular feature called “Ask the Captain” that recently addressed this technology: Ask the Captain: How has GPS changed flight navigation? via USA Today 

Africa recently made the news with a new PBN procedure in Liberia that was flown by Delta Air Lines and their technical pilots in a 767: RIA Gets GPS Approach System for Flight Landing Delta Applauded for Pro-Bono Test Validation via Daily Observer, Delta Makes Landmark Landing Using RNAV GPS in Liberia via FrontPageAfrica

Nigeria is encouraging Operators and Pilots to “Key In” to PBN as an important technology for their country: Airlines urged to key into satellite based navigation system via The Nation, NAMA to switch to performance based navigation via Vanguard

After two years of collaborative effort with numerous stakeholders, Brazil recently approved the first RNP AR approaches at Santos Dumont, a challenging airport near downtown Rio de Janeiro: Brazil Approves RNP Approaches via AIN Online

Azul recently announced the kickoff of their own RNP AR program in Brazil for their Embraer E-jet fleet: Brazil’s Azul taps GE for RNP-AR operations via Air Traffic Management 

The CEO of Alaska Airlines, the original pioneer with RNP AR operations, provided more insight into the financial rewards of their program: Alaska Airlines Sees ‘Decent Payback’ from RNP Investment via AIN Online

Alaska Airlines continues to be a pioneer in this field with a new SeaTac procedure introduced in early June with the support of many partners: Sea-Tac airliner tests could yield quieter, more efficient landings via The Seattle Times 

The FAA recently announced a contract with ITT and GE Aviation to deploy public RNP procedures at 5 mid-size airports.  It is the first FAA contract for 3^rd Party PBN in the US: ITT Exelis, GE Naverus Win NextGen RNP Contracts via Inside GNSS

The popular resort town of Sun Valley is an excellent candidate to benefit from RNP AR procedures to improve service at the existing airport: Applaud airport reliability effort via Idaho Mountain Express 

There are challenges to successfully deploy PBN procedures that are seen by communities improving their environment.  Lessons are being learned in Charlotte with the local community groups taking action to what they see as a negative experience with PBN: Charlotte Douglas’ efforts not reducing noise, residents’ attorney says via The Charlotte Observer

The Middle East has joined the community of countries with successful PBN programs with a new RNP AR procedure at Abu Dhabi: Etihad Airways operates a demonstration RNP-AR flight at Abu Dhabi via Airliners Gallery, Airbus and Etihad Airways begin full RNP-AR implementation in Abu Dhabi Terminal Airspace via Airbus 

Malaysia is on track to have a nation-wide network of RNP procedures supplied by GE Aviation in cooperation with Air Asia and other stakeholders: GE Aviation Implementing Nation-wide RNP Program in Malaysia with AirAsia via Market Watch 

As you read through these headlines from recent weeks, I hope you have the same impression as me, which is that our industry is embracing PBN technology in unprecedented ways and there is much to celebrate in these successes!

Now, to talk about July, which was a busy month for the aviation world. A few weeks ago, Farnborough hosted our largest industry tradeshow of the year. On July 16, I took part in a first flight in Lima, Peru with LAN Airlines and spent remainder of that week taking part in Latin America’s PBN Summit. Here’s a little more detail on these things:

Farnborough: I was in Rio de Janeiro for customer meetings and wasn’t able to attend this year’s show, but you can check out all the things that GE Aviation did at www.geaviation.com/shows.

As I noted earlier, I recently took part in the first Required Navigation Performance Authorization Required (RNP AR) to Instrument Landing System (ILS) with autoland flight at Lima’s Jorge Chavez International Airport.  LAN Peru Captain Jose Salazar was at the controls of this regularly scheduled passenger flight from Aeroquipa to Lima with LAN Peru VP of Operations Captain Pedro Robles and myself in the flightdeck jumpseats as observers.  This project required a substantial amount of background work with excellent cooperation among all the involved parties.  All of this was evident to me as I watched the elegance of the procedure engineering enable the A319 to transition gracefully from the RNP arrival and approach to the ILS for the automatic landing on Lima Runway 15 at 1502 UTC on July 16^th.  At the transition point from RNP to ILS, there is a complete transition of guidance control laws and I was amazed to see this occur without even the slightest waggle of wings – it was one completely seamless path from top of descent to touchdown.   As the Cat III ILS to Runway 15 at Lima is published shortly, this new integrated deployment will enable airlines to enjoy the efficiency and predictability benefits of RNP operations in all-weather conditions at Lima.

For the remainder of the week, I attended the Latin America PBN Forum in Lima, Peru. The Forum promotes safety, efficiency and collaboration for Latin America’s aviation infrastructure.  It emphasizes collaboration as a way to achieve common goals and brings together key stakeholders to share their needs, vision, knowledge, and plans that can lead to an inclusive and successful PBN implementation in the region. Leaders from regional governments, airlines, airports, regulatory agencies and air navigation service providers participated, as well as global aviation organizations IATA, ICAO, and ALTA.

Lastly, I’d like to thank David Parker Brown – also known as @airlinereporter – for having me guest post on his blog. My fellow GE AvGeeks, Steve Csonka and Dale Carlson, have also posted within the last month. To read my post, click here.

I hope you’ll take a moment to reflect on how much progress we are all making in upgrading airspace operations around the globe!

Steve

On May 10, I had the opportunity to speak at a TEDx event in Cincinnati, Oh. The younger brother of the larger TED – Technology, Entertainment, Design – conferences in Long Beach/Palm Springs and the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh UK, TEDx’s are locally run but bring the same level of provocative thought and passion.

My presentation reflected what I am passionate about; building highways in the sky. The good people at TEDx Cincy shared a video of my presentation. Watch below and tell me what you think! 

 Jump to http://www.tedxcincy.com/videos/ to see the full run of show from TEDx Cincy’s 2012 Plugged and Unplugged: The Crossroads of Technology and Artisanship

A special thank you to all of the local entrepreneurs, designers, lawyers (and sometimes board-game makers) who coordinated the event. It was great to be around such enthusiastic peers who are trying to change the world in their own special way.

Steve

Many times over the past several years, I have reflected on the subject of change and how to better facilitate the process of change in the course of my work in airspace modernization.  It’s a fact that change is a part of life – it is central to the human experience.  You would think that we would get enough practice at some point in our lives that we would become more receptive to it.  In fact, it has been my observation and personal experience that just the opposite is true.  We get comfortable with what’s familiar and often become more resistant to change with age and tenure.  We like the status quo and resist changes even when there are obvious and compelling reasons to move in a new direction.  How many times have we all heard, or even said ourselves, “Remember the days when…”, or “Those were the good old days…”?   The human tendency is to resist change and protect our “turf”.  Humans and the organizational institutions we create have adapted clever mechanisms to maintain the status quo and one of our very best staus quo “preservation” mechanisms is to restrict information and minimize visibility to outsiders. 

Late in his life, Socrates was placed on trial for heresy.  His crime?  He had encouraged his students to challenge the accepted beliefs of the time and think for themselves.  His response to the court when faced with the choice of execution or change was his famous words, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

I’ve reflected on Socrates’ words many times as I’ve considered how to live my life over the years.  In fact, his words were on my mind as I had the opportunity last June to accept an invitation to address the CEOs of the world’s Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) in Bangkok at CANSO’s AGM conference.  The leadership of CANSO had asked me to be “provocative” in bringing a message that would challenge ANSPs to think beyond the “status quo”.  I was particularly intrigued with this request as the challenges for this industry are so great, and the solutions appear to be quite complex.

ANSPs are responsible for managing airspace operations with air traffic operations management and navigation infrastructure.  They are deeply involved in the process of upgrading airspace and face some significant challenges in doing so.  Some of these challenges are internal to their organizations.  Most are not organized to be fast moving with change -in fact, they are intentionally organized to ensure that any changes are considered with great caution.  Most are owned, either in whole or in part, by a state organization that is primarily concerned with safety, reliable service and security.  When it comes to necessary changes in arrival and departure patterns, external challenges include significant local and state political elements which make it very difficult to get support for any airspace considerations that are perceived to create “new noise”.  At the same time, airlines are feeling pain from increasing and unpredictable fuel costs.  They want airspace improvements that reduce costs and allow increased utilization of their new, high performance aircraft, yet they don’t want to see airspace charges or taxes increase. 

If things weren’t difficult enough for ANSPs, I introduced a new challenge for them to consider.  We see significant changes around us in this age of increasing information, particularly with Internet access and social media.  In my current role with GE, I am becoming well acquainted with Twitter, LinkedIn, various industry weblogs and internet websites.  The expanding availability of information is amazing and it is having its effect on increasing visibility across every human endeavor.  For the most part, though, I would say that this new world of increased access to information has not really intersected the business of airspace management.  I predicted for the audience that this was about to change and offered some early examples as precursors of what’s to come.  An increasing number of hobbyists, private and commercial entities around the world have installed passive transponder or ADS-B receivers to observe, collect and archive information about aircraft flights.  In fact, many of us have smart phone and tablet applications that provide an incredible amount of detail on how aircraft are arriving and departing airports across the globe.  This information is only recently available to the public and can only get more and more refined with associated applications for various interests.

I offered the possibility of a future where a constellation of low-earth orbit satellites are equipped with these passive transponder and ADS-B receivers that collect aircraft information over the entire globe and archive the track histories.  A global aggregated database of aircraft track histories has great commercial value and will feed an increasingly information-hungry population of global citizens.  Certainly this will give greater visibility into our world of airspace operations and provide a means for anyone with interest to measure and analyze the performance of airspace operations anywhere in the world. 

I told the CEOs that they should expect more website postings by community citizens and hobbyists who provide increasingly more detailed data and analysis on relative efficiencies at both the aircraft-by-aircraft level and the overall system level.  This increased visibility and external analysis will be accompanied by pointed questions like, “Why are there air traffic delays when there are so few aircraft in the air at any given time?”, “Why are these aircraft flying over my house instead of xyz?”, and “Do you realize how much more fuel is being burned and emissions are being generated above what our analysis shows would be possible?”

Since this talk was given last June, Iridium has announced plans to include ADS-B receivers on their next-generation low-earth orbit satellites.  There is a very real possibility that in the next decade, real-time aircraft surveillance will be available for the entire globe.  Beyond the operational opportunities, there will be the commercial information market opportunity I mentioned previously.

So, what to do?

 …..to be continued

On February 23, 2012, I was aboard LAN Airlines flight 2022, which inaugurated Latin America’s first continuously guided flight from takeoff to landing using Performance-based Navigation (PBN) technology.  GE supported the Green Skies of Peru project, a collaborative effort among LAN, Peru’s air navigation service provider CORPAC and regulator DGAC, by helping to provide aircraft flying from Cusco to Lima a highly efficient, predictable flight path from liftoff of runway 10 in Cusco to touchdown on Lima’s runway 15.

The Green Skies of Peru project is a notable milestone in the global effort to modernize today’s obsolete airspace infrastructure to match the capabilities of today’s modern aircraft systems. Deploying a continuous PBN city pair flight path creates additional predictability and continuity throughout the entire flight, compared to a single PBN arrival or departure path, while solving operational challenges at the individual airports.

The GE-designed PBN departure, en-route, arrival and approach procedures will save participating airlines on average 19 track miles, 6.3 minutes (7 minutes actual), 450 pounds of fuel and 1,420 pounds of CO₂ emissions per flight. The new flight paths also enable increased capacity at Lima’s Jorge Chavez International Airport – a major hub in Latin America – while helping to reduce the carbon footprint at Cusco, the access point to the popular tourist destination Machu Picchu. LAN flies the route 11-17 times a day, depending on the season.

With the success of this demonstration flight, a formal trial will commence allowing the team to validate the benefits and the paths under various operating conditions and finalize the deployment plan.

In 2009, GE, in collaboration with IATA, designed and deployed Required Navigation Performance (RNP) approach procedures for LAN at Cusco to improve access into the airport that is flanked by the Andes Mountains. Prior to the RNP paths, it was typical for one or more of LAN’s 15-21 scheduled flights per day into Cusco to be delayed or diverted due to poor weather and low visibility. Since the RNP paths have been in use at Cusco, LAN has reduced cancellations from twelve to five, flight delays by 45% and un-stabilized approaches by 94%, per month on average. During the first year of RNP use at Cusco, more than 30,000 of LAN Peru´s passengers avoided flight cancellations or delays, thanks to the technology. With the success of the Cusco paths, LAN selected GE Aviation in 2010 to develop an RNP program at five other airports it serves, including Lima. 

I went to Peru to participate in and witness this historic event, the inaugural flight.  What I wasn’t expecting, was the amazing level of passion and enthusiasm at the personal level among the LAN personnel in particular.  It was more than what you’d see or expect in a business transaction or any mere technical demonstration.  At the reception following the flight, many speakers, beginning with the CEO of LAN, expressed their genuine excitement and enthusiasm over the transformation of their flying operations, and how those benefits translate into advantages for the people and environment of Peru.

It took me back to those enthusiastic days at Alaska Airlines 20 years ago.  I was 29 when I first started the work on the Juneau RNP project. And I celebrated my 49^th birthday just a day prior to the flight in Peru.  I had not thought of it this way before, but in a way I realized – spreading RNP around the globe has been my life’s work. 

I want to share part of a speech given at the reception by Captain Christian Staiger of LAN Airlines.  It captures for me the emotion of the day and paints a picture of what RNP does.

“People say that when a man lifts his feet off the ground, he shares his history with the rest of the world. Borders can’t be drawn on the sky, and we the aviators, have replaced them with a friendly greeting of welcome and farewell through our modern communications systems each time we cross a frontier.

When the sun god Inti decides to shine on our crops, it never asks who the growing wheat belongs to.  Migrating birds only look for warmth and a proper place to settle down their nests.  Navigators through history have always observed stars to plot their positions on the maps. Today some modern stars with precise electronic timepieces on board orbit our planet and can be observed from every corner on earth, day and night, on clear or clouded skies, available for every airplane with the proper equipment on board….

The flight has been perfect.  The shortest route possible is the one that has been flown.  The precision of the navigators is such that the maximum error is limited to the distance of a wingspan.  From this flight on, variance and dispersion can be eliminated.  If you allow my analogy, we can say that a straight railway line has been traced between these cities that can be used by all appropriate modern aircraft.

Today’s historic milestone has many passports.  We have chosen the sky that covers the land of Peru, to honor our sincere engagement with the environment.  The flight Cusco-Lima joins not only our aeronautical histories under a common brotherhood; it also does it with the histories of all cultures that have inhabited these lands.  The wisdom of our common Inca ancestors in dialog with scientific knowledge of present days.”

You can watch a demonstration of Green Skies of Peru here.

Click here to see photos.

Just before Christmas I was in China for my 44^th visit since helping to launch RNP operations in China beginning with the Air China Boeing 757 in Lhasa in November of 2004.  Click here to see a photo. The occasion for this visit was to kick off our brand new training course, “PBN 201: Integrating PBN into Air Traffic Management”.  PBN technology is endorsed by international organizations and regulatory agencies globally and is recognized as the enabler of more consistent and efficient operations at remote and busy terminal environments.  In consideration of these benefits, the global expansion of Performance-based Navigation (PBN) is continuing to increase.  A number of countries have done a remarkable job preparing PBN deployment plans and with trial deployments to gain experience and validate results for stakeholders.  These same countries are then moving rapidly toward broad deployment with the idea of multiplying the benefits at an exponential rate through a network deployment of PBN infrastructure across the country.  With expansion of PBN procedures at mid to high traffic airports, transformations in air traffic management concepts and techniques are needed to address a mixture of PBN and traditional operations.

China is an excellent example of a country that is remarkable in their PBN plans and progress with deployment, particularly with RNP.  The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) and Air China had their first introduction to PBN during a visit to Boeing in the early part of the last decade.  During that visit, they had a briefing on the aircraft capability and a simulator demonstration of the RNP operation in Juneau that had been pioneered by Alaska Airlines in the mid-1990’s.  That introduction to RNP led to the launch of their first RNP deployment in Lhasa, Tibet which went into service with an Air China 757 in May 2006.  Success led to success and today there are over a dozen airports equipped with RNP procedures flown by all four of the major airlines in China and an increasing number of regional operators.

There is one common theme for all of the RNP deployments at China airports to date, and that is to reduce the risk of operations at some of the most challenges airports in the world.  The majority of the work has been in the Tibet Autonomous Region, Yunnan Province, and Sichuan Province.  In most of this region, the average terrain elevations are 15,000’ and current RNP operations ensure predictable, reliable airline operations to airports in Tibet like Bangda with an elevation of 14,200’ and Ali, with an elevation just over 14,000’.  With these extreme airport environments, the China RNP deployment strategy is understandable.  Other countries that are actively deploying RNP have also focused on high-risk airports as a first step in deployment.  What we have seen in other countries however, is a transition very quickly to an RNP deployment schedule that focuses on air traffic operational efficiency. 

Being at the forefront of the global PBN transformation, GE is focused on developing and delivering air traffic management solutions that improve aircraft operations and the air traffic control workload.  The PBN 201 course was created to address the need for ATM transformation associated with wide implementations and to help participants understand what’s required for successful PBN integration in a wide-variety of environments, including busy terminal areas.

The PBN 201 course builds on the real-world example of the pioneering work of the Brisbane Green RNP Project and highlights the results of this trial in an environment of medium density traffic with various levels of aircraft capability.  Details on practical integration of PBN into the ATM system, including technical training requirements, project management and existing regulatory and guidance material was covered in the course. 

We had a lot of positive feedback from the participants in the course and we expect to offer the course again in the future as part of our effort to support the deployment of PBN infrastructure in the various world regions.

I recently returned from a week in India.  The main event was the US India Aviation Summit at the Taj Palace Hotel in New Delhi, but while I was there I took the opportunity to meet with executives and technical staff at airlines, Airports Authority of India, and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation.  It was a welcome visit for me because I was able to reconnect with many friends and acquaintances that I had not seen in some time.  This is the part of the business that is always interesting to me.  Yes, we deal in technology and even my job title is “Technical” Fellow, but at the end of the day, it is always about people.

It had been a while since I last visited India to support early efforts to deploy RNP into Indian airspace.  In the intervening period of time, progress with RNP in India has been surprisingly and, curiously slow. I was asked to join a plenary discussion at the Aviation Summit on Air Traffic Management, Air Space Utilization and NextGen Technology and talk about the value of RNP in India.  One of the first points I made was that India is unique among the major regions in the world in that 79% of the air transport fleet in India is fully capable of RNP operations, and that fleet operates at fifty-two of India’s airports.  This is an amazing number when you consider other regions, such as the United States, where just over 40% of the air transport fleet is equipped and capable of RNP.  For an explanation of why the high percentage of equipped aircraft in India, you have to look no further than the fact that air traffic in India has tripled in the last decade. This increase in traffic is supported by large fleets of new production Boeing and Airbus aircraft that are delivered fully configured for RNP operations.  Some estimates have the number of passengers more than tripling in the next 10-15 years, which will require new airspace infrastructure to increase air capacity in order to keep up with this pace of growth.  A key component to this build-out of infrastructure is RNP, and Airports Authority of India’s Directorate of Air Traffic Management of Airports has published a Performance-based Navigation (PBN) Implementation Road Map.

The first GPS approaches (now RNP APCH, per ICAO Navigation Specification) were deployed in the US in early 1990s.  The first RNP approach with passengers was conducted in May, 1996 by Alaska Airlines in Juneau, Alaska.  Over the last eight years, my colleagues and I at GE’s PBN Services have been deeply involved in deployments of over 350 RNP procedures in Australasia, China, South and North America.  RNP has been the foundation to impressive improvements in access to some of the world’s most physically constrained airports, such as in the mountainous areas of West and Southwest China, New Zealand, Canada, and Peru.  In addition to addressing the physical obstacles, RNP routes have been designed to de-conflict busy airspace and to avoid noise sensitive areas at airports that are not terrain-challenged.  Inherent in the design of RNP paths are Optimized Profile Descents (OPDs) that allow the aircraft to transition from cruise flight to landing in the most efficient way, further reducing noise and fuel burn.  The technology and experience is available.  A full complement of ICAO and FAA documents have been published that promulgate guidance, standards and best practices so that all regulators now have the tools to support the transition to performance-based navigation.

So, with all of the industry experience, validation of benefits, and regulatory tools for success, how can it be that India, with the highest concentration of capable aircraft in the world, does not have a single RNP approach procedure in service?  It was my observation during my visit that this is a question that a lot of people in India are asking and it is my belief that this situation will not persist much longer.  I wish all of my friends in India the very best success in this endeavor.

David Huber Fulton was the most significant person in my life.  He was my Dad and a pilot for the US Air Force and then Delta Air Lines.  I grew up crazy about airplanes and dreaming of being a pilot like him.  He encouraged me to study hard in school to gain a solid academic foundation that would be a complement to my flying skills.  My engineering training and flying qualifications have proven to be a tremendous combination in helping me think through some of the toughest challenges in aviation navigation.   As I look back on what I have been able to accomplish in my life, I have him to thank for most of it.

My Dad died five weeks ago and I’m in the very human process of grieving his passing.  It is not easy, but our family is quite close and we’re helping each other through it.  These are the times in life that we pause and think about more than just the normal, everyday routine things of life. 

Steve Jobs gave a commencement address to the graduating class at Stanford University in 2005.  He had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer the previous year which resulted in his own time of reflection on the subject of death.  He told the class that, “Death is very likely the single best invention of life.  It is life’s change agent.”  Jobs described his morning routine where he looked in the mirror and asked the question of himself, “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?”  If the answer to that question too many days in a row was, “No”, then he knew he needed to change something.  Steve Jobs accomplished a lot in his life, but it has been observed by many since his death a few weeks ago that his final years since his cancer diagnosis were the most productive in his entire career.

All of us want to do meaningful work – that is, to work on things that make a difference.  We have an innate need to be part of something that is bigger than ourselves.  I began to recognize my opportunity to do this early on in my time as a pilot for Alaska Airlines. It became clear to me that there was a better way to navigate than with the old ground-based transmitters and the associated operating rules that had prevailed for the previous decades of air transport operations. 

Over a course of events, I was able to lead the development and operational deployment of an entirely new way of navigating aircraft that revolutionized operations for Alaska Airlines and is now the focus of significant deployment efforts around the globe.  However, as satisfying as these accomplishments are, I feel a certain amount of restlessness.  I know there’s more that can be done.  Air traffic operations today are safe, but inefficient and subject to disruptions.  I know we can improve, but we need to make better progress than what we are seeing from current activities.

I work with people at GE who share this same sense of purpose and calling.  We can build on the foundation of performance-based navigation and connect with other technologies to bring significant improvements to air traffic operations.  Dare to imagine with us a world where airplanes depart as scheduled, transit to their destinations with lower cost and environmental impact and arrive precisely on schedule.  We believe it is within our ability to help create this future of air traffic management and that it is a life-cause that passes the “bathroom mirror” test described by Steve Jobs.  I look forward to working with my colleagues at GE and those of you across the industry as partners to accomplish this dream.

You can also follow me on twitter @captstevefulton.

Boarded a plane recently? You’ve no doubt noticed that air traffic delays are bad, and they’re only getting worse — much worse. In 2009, 100 million system delay minutes cost U.S. passenger airlines nearly $6.1 billion, and those numbers just keep on rising.

One thing’s for certain: We need technology to rescue our struggling air travel system. And one such technology is GE’s Required Navigation Performance (RNP) landing approaches. This technology lets planes fly precisely-defined flight paths without relying on outdated, ground-based radio navigation — rather, it works with precise satellite navigation and advanced tech aboard the aircraft, creating shorter and more efficient flight paths that reduce delays and alleviate air traffic.

According to a new study (http://www.geaviation.com/aboutgeae/presscenter/pdf/GE_study.pdf ), Highways in the Sky, deploying RNP at 46 mid-size U.S. airports could save the following:
12.9 million gallons of fuel, 274.6 million pounds of carbon dioxide, 17,900 hours and $65.6 million in operational costs.

For more information, visit: http://www.gereports.com/see-what-more-efficient-air-travel-looks-like/.