Potential Fuel Benefits of Optimized Continuous Climb Operations at Schiphol

Continuous Climb Operations aim at improving the efficiency of a flight's climb phase by reducing the number of level-offs. The associated fuel-benefits help airlines and airports to comply with future emission demands, rising fuel prices and modernizing airspace requirements. Previously, most studies in this field only considered the effect of removing unintended level-off sections requested by Air Traffic Control (ATC). In this study, the effect of all current climb inefficiencies have been studied for Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands. By comparing historic radar tracks and on-board measured flight data with simulated optimized trajectories, potential fuel benefits have been calculated for three scenarios. It was found that on average, 39.9 kg of fuel could be saved per flight with minimum time loss compared to the original departure when abandoning the 250 knots speed restriction below FL100. As a result, 19.2 million kg fuel and 60.8 million kg CO2 emissions could be reduced annually at Schiphol given the current traffic density.Aerospace Engineering | Control & Simulatio