The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the US has announced aircraft bound for Kansas City, Orlando, Omaha, Reno and six Florida airports can avail of the "optimised profile descent" system it said saves fuel and means a less-choppy landing.
Aircraft heading for the airports "can now slide down from cruising altitude to final approach saving millions of gallons of fuel and reducing greenhouse gases", the FAA said, with the additions taking number of airports using the system across the country to 64.
"The era of choppy descents is coming to an end, providing a smoother landing and saving fuel in the process,” said acting FAA administrator Billy Nolen.
The new system "safely eliminate[s] the need for the fuel-consuming stair-step procedure" which requires aircraft to "repeatedly level off and power up the engines", steps that burn more fuel and require traffic controllers to issue instructions at each step. But with optimised descents, aircraft will "descend from cruising altitude to the runway in a smooth, continuous path with the engines at near idle", the FAA said, estimating the latest widening of the system will see savings of than 90,000 gallons of fuel and the cutting of greenhouse gas emissions by 27,000 tons annually.