The transportation sector, accounting for about one fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions, is facing a significant transformation in order to become more climate-friendly. In terms of air transportation, there are several important steps on the way to making flying sustainable both for the planet itself and for people directly or indirectly being exposed to its effects. In the state of the current air traffic operations, where environmentally friendly propulsion systems and fuels are not yet implemented on a large scale, enhancing the efficiency in the airspace can help to bring us closer to the environmental goals of aviation. Such solutions may include improved synchronization of arriving flights in the Terminal Maneuvering Area (TMA), in which congestion is a problem for many airports.  

In this thesis, we first explore and develop methodologies for assessing the environmental impact of the operations in TMA. More specifically, the goal of the assessments is to quantify the additional fuel consumption, gaseous emissions and noise that comes from horizontally and vertically inefficient arrival operations in TMA. We perform our assessments on a couple of European airports, including Stockholm-Arlanda.   

Secondly, we propose a Mixed Integer Programming (MIP)-based optimization model which provides for conflict-free arrival operations, where aircraft fly fuel-efficient Continuous Descent Operations (CDOs), applied to Point Merge (PM) arrival procedures, with the primary purpose to serve as a route assigner. We base our optimization on real scenarios, from actual transmitted flight data, and model realistic descent profiles considering the operational capabilities of the specific aircraft type. Additionally, the optimization model ensures the required spacing between aircraft taking off and landing in case the runway is used in a mixed mode. We evaluate our solutions by assessing numerous performance metrics, including environmental efficiency, and compare to the actual trajectories of the real operations. On two European airports implementing PM procedures, we demonstrate that our optimization model provides improved vertical performance as well as reduced time and distance flown in TMA, contributing to reduced levels of noise and fuel savings, accompanied by decreased emissions.