Do aircraft take the most direct route between point of departure and destination?
When you fly you normally take the most direct route between two points, while when you drive or take the train the distance between the same two points is 30 to 40% longer. However, aircraft are not always allowed to use the shortest distance, as they are often forced to “zigzag” due to restrictions in airspace imposed by governments. In Europe, for example, the airspace is patched together from old national systems, with segmentation into small, inefficient blocks which use a variety of different air traffic control technologies. The creation of a “Single European Sky”, on which the industry is working together with European regulators, will bring significant environmental benefits, through the reduction of holding (aircraft flying in a fixed pattern waiting for permission to land), more efficient routings thanks to the design of functional airspace blocks (FAB), and enhanced optimal flight profiles. Shortening routes can indeed significantly reduce CO2 emissions. In fact, every minu
