BRASILIA (dpa-AFX) - Collaborative trials of air traffic flow management in the Americas have saved about 4,400 hours of flying time and more than $38.9 million in 2026, the International Civil Aviation Organization said.
The collaborative trials supported by ICAO have also saved some 13,330 tons of fuel and avoided 42,160 tons of carbon dioxide emissions, a contribution to the goal of net zero carbon emissions from international aviation by 2050.
In Europe, a EUROCONTROL program anticipating weather and congestion avoided around 3.1 million minutes of delay between May and August 2026, saving an estimated $448 million and making the network 14 per cent more stable on the worst days.
Air traffic delays cost billions and turn journeys into ordeals. Some countries are already proving that better coordination saves thousands of flying hours and cuts emissions - and the UN's aviation agency wants the rest of the world to follow.
In increasingly crowded skies, a storm, an emergency or a closed route in one place can cause delays thousands of kilometres away.
The bill is enormous. In Europe alone, air traffic management delays cost an estimated $2.3 billion or more in 2025, according to EUROCONTROL, the continent's air navigation body.
Co-ordinated air traffic flow management between nations across the world is the idea behind a push by ICAO, the UN agency that sets global aviation standards.
The fix starts long before landing. If an airport knows it cannot take more aircraft for a while, it can coordinate with other airports to hold back departures, rather than leave planes circling overhead.
This approach, known as air traffic flow management, lets airlines, airports, controllers and weather services share information and make decisions together.
Several countries already use it, but the benefits are limited when national systems don't talk to each other. After five days of talks in Montreal convened by ICAO, governments and industry backed a faster global rollout.
For passengers, that should mean earlier warning of cancellations and delays as well as quicker recovery when things go wrong.
'When people get to the airport, wait all day and nobody tells them anything, that creates huge problems,' ICAO Secretary General Juan Carlos Salazar said.
Disruption snowballs, he explained. A problem lasting an hour or a day knocks on to every flight scheduled after it, and today's system is slow to bounce back.
Brazil and Colombia have run air traffic flow management systems for years, Salazar said, but largely at national level while international flights cross many countries' airspace.
'A flight from Europe to Australia or New Zealand passes through four or five regions, different continents and that requires excellent coordination which doesn't exist today,' he said. 'No country or region acting alone can manage that.'
ICAO, with 193 member States, sets common standards and provides technical help so countries can coordinate regardless of resources. New international rules on flow management are due in November 2030, with regional workshops planned for 2027.
The pressure is mounting. ICAO projects air travel could reach 12.4 billion passengers by 2050.
The ICAO chief noted that other challenges are piling up. Conflicts force airlines to reroute around danger zones, creating new bottlenecks. Drones, air taxis, rocket launches and unplanned re-entries of objects from orbit all demand closer coordination.
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