Aircraft heading to Orlando, Kansas City, Omaha, Reno and six airports in south Florida can now slide down from cruising altitude to final approach, saving millions of gallons of fuel and reducing greenhouse gases in the process.

“We are investing across the entire system to provide passengers with the best travel experience. The era of choppy descents is coming to an end, providing a smoother landing and saving fuel in the process,” says acting FAA administrator Billy Nolen.

The new Optimised Profile Descents (OPDs) safely eliminate the need for the fuel-consuming stair-step procedure. Under traditional procedures, aircraft repeatedly level off and power up the engines. This burns more fuel and requires air traffic controllers to issue instructions at each step. With optimised descents, aircraft descend from cruising altitude to the runway in a smooth, continuous path with the engines at near idle.

During 2022, the FAA implemented new OPDs for the following 11 airports: Boca Raton; Fort Lauderdale Executive; North Palm Beach County General Aviation; Orlando International; Palm Beach County Park; Palm Beach International and Pompano Beach Airpark in Florida; Eppley Air Field and Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska; Kansas City International in Missouri; and Reno/Tahoe International in Nevada.

With these new descents in place, the FAA estimates that the industry will save more than 90,000 gallons of fuel on average and will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 27,000 tons annually. This change is equivalent to fuel used by 62 Boeing 737 flights between New York and Cleveland.

The 11 airports brings the total number of airports with the procedures to 64. Since 2014, the FAA also has developed OPD procedures at airports in Atlanta, Charlotte, Cleveland, Columbus, Denver, Detroit, Fort Lauderdale, Houston, Las Vegas, Miami, Phoenix, Portland, northern California, southern California, Seattle, Tampa, Washington, DC and others.

In its Aviation Climate Action Plan, the United States set a goal to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions from the US aviation sector by 2050. To achieve it, the FAA:

- Has awarded $100 million to research and scale fuel-saving technologies and noise reductions

- Has awarded $327 million to electrify airport gate equipment and vehicles

- Has invested $35 million for universities to help build sustainable aviation fuel supply chains

- Has completed research and testing on reducing fuel burn and taxi time.