The proportion of flights achieving a “continuous descent”, which uses less fuel, has fewer emissions, and is quieter, is 41% in Ireland on average, well above the average of 34% in Europe.
Taxi times also improved at Dublin and Cork airports, a report from the Irish Aviation Authority found.
“At Dublin Airport, some airlines achieved substantially higher continuous descent rates than others – a practice than can save 46kg of fuel or 145kg of emissions per flight.
“Ryanair achieved a continuous descent rate of 58%, compared with an average of 37% for other operators at Dublin Airport, and also sets the benchmark across Europe,” the report found.
Travel industry expert Eoghan Corry explained the debate over environmental airports is a ‘very noisy debate’ and “only makes up 2% of such emissions”.
“The structure of planes waiting to land is managed well, compared to London Heathrow, Charles de Gaulle and Frankfurt airports, with Dublin being the 12th busiest airport in Europe.
“But the whole management of air traffic control is a shambles and needs to improve by 20% to 30%, with Dublin included in this,” he said.
There were almost 317,000 flights to and from Irish airports last year carrying a record 43.5million passengers.
* This article was originally published on BusinessPlus.ie.