New Delhi:
Hoping to minimise the environmental impact of high air traffic movement, controllers at airports like Delhi, Mumbai and Pune have started putting airplanes on shorter direct paths.
On an average, a plane adds 4 kilos of untreated greenhouse gasses per minute directly into the atmosphere. For instance, earlier a plane from Delhi to Pune would travel 670 Nautical miles but now that's down to 600 nautical miles. That would mean saving of 70 miles or 10 minutes of flying .
And each extra minute in the air, costs airlines Rs 5000 which are passed onto customers. So, by cutting 10 minutes of flight the controllers help save Rs 50,000.
Such measures saved nearly Rs 10 crore last year. Now that may not sound much but the environmental implications are huge.
"The effort started as an initiative of a few controllers who had a conscience to go the green way," says Swaminathan, Secretary Regional ATC Guild.
Swaminathan says direct routing has potential to save more specially if some of the airspace restricted for the military is shared with passenger.