Geneva, 31 August 2022 – Skyguide strongly believes that innovation, efficiency, and engagement go hand in hand with environmental action. As an actor of the “Exemplary Energy and Climate” initiative, the Swiss air navigation service provider reduces its environmental footprint by improving the operations and infrastructure. In 2021 and as an effect of the pandemic, Skyguide reports results above target in each category.
Skyguide joined the national “Exemplary Energy and Climate” initiative at its creation in 2013. Since then Skyguide continued to deploy the federal action plan of best practices and to reduce the energy consumption.
In 2021, Skyguide performed well above expectations, improving by 20% energy efficiency compared to pre-COVID performance. Undoubtedly, such result were driven by the year’s extraordinary context of reduced mobility and diminished necessity to heat premises.
In direct correlation to the COVID pandemic’s low air traffic, Skyguide could meet flight efficiency targets set by the Single European Sky regulation as well. The difference between the flown trajectory of a flight crossing Switzerland and its most direct distance was therefore below 1%.
The good performance of Skyguide’s operations as well as its infrastructure’s energy efficiency is however far from being only due to COVID. During the pandemic, the company maintained the development and implementation of solutions to deliver more efficient services and to reduce its carbon footprint.
For instance, Skyguide improved energy efficiency with the help of calibration drones, designed by innovative in-house engineers. Switching to drones resulted in a reduced number of calibration flights, and consequently to a reduction of Skyguide’s emissions.
