Towards greener skies: Optimising taxi-out fuel for aviation emission reduction

In the quest to mitigate the environmental impact of the aviation sector, we seek to optimise fuel consumption during taxi-out—aiming for reduced emissions and cost efficiency—while ensuring safety remains paramount. Partnering with an airline, we access a comprehensive aircraft taxiing database. Through data analysis and statistical inference, we establish suitable probability distributions for the key variables involved in the taxi-out phase. We then advocate for the systematic adoption of two operational strategies: streamlining the delay time for the second engine’s start-up and suggesting revised taxi-out loads. Both procedures should be regarded as multi-objective optimisation problems, wherein we must assess not only their benefits but also their potential adverse consequences—whether in terms of safety or non-compliance with existing regulations—and strive to minimise them to the greatest possible extent. We conduct simulations of future operations at high-traffic airports to predict the advantages and viability of our fuel-saving measures and quantify associated uncertainties. Results show that significant savings could be achieved, outweighing the relatively low risk of non-compliance. Additional recommendations to airports and air traffic controllers could further mitigate these risks. We believe these protocols could be valuable decision-making tools for the airline, contributing to environmental preservation and operational efficiency. Rather than asserting absolute truths, our goal is to provide a technical basis for informed decision-making under standard conditions, while acknowledging that rigid rule-following may overlook key human factors and real-world deviations.