Greener Skies Initiative

For decades Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air have been leaders in pioneering the development of efficient flight operations throughout Alaska, California and the Pacific Northwest. Today, we’re working to minimize the environmental impact of our operations — on the ground and in the air — by reducing aircraft noise and emissions and limiting their impact on the communities we serve.

Our commitment to "green" operations has never been stronger, particularly in our hometown community where Alaska and Horizon represent nearly half of the daily operations at Sea-Tac Airport.

To further reduce aircraft emissions and noise exposure in the Puget Sound region, we recently formed a "Greener Skies" partnership with The Boeing Company and the Port of Seattle. Together we are working with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to implement new flight procedures at Sea-Tac Airport that will allow airlines like Alaska and Horizon to use more efficient — and environmentally friendly — flight paths. It’s just one more way we’re working to bring "Greener Skies" to the region.

Tools for a Shorter Flight Path

Imagine driving home on I-5 and you find that the closest exit ramp is not open. Instead, you have to continue for another 10 miles, exit and drive through residential streets to get home. That’s a bit like the current aircraft approach procedure at Sea-Tac.

With Required Navigation Performance, or RNP, aircraft can fly consistent and controlled approach and departure paths with pinpoint accuracy. This means airlines can reduce flight path length during approach – saving time and fuel as well as reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

Optimized Profile Descent, or OPD*, is a navigation procedure that utilizes GPS guidance, enabling an aircraft to essentially glide at idle power from cruise altitude to an airport runway without using a traditional step-down descent. Using OPD procedures, Alaska and Horizon flights will approach Sea-Tac at higher altitudes, reducing noise exposure on the ground and saving fuel and emissions.

Working in tandem, these two procedures will maximize environmental benefits for the community and minimize operational costs.

*Previously known as CDA (Continuous Descent Approach).

How We Will Use RNP & OPD at Sea-Tac

We're proposing to the FAA that Alaska, Horizon and all equipped carriers be allowed to gradually integrate RNP & OPD operations into the air traffic system at Sea-Tac Airport. The first step will focus on the most heavily used flight corridor today — approaching the airport from the west.

Using both RNP & OPD for these west side approaches, our aircraft can consistently take a shorter (and quieter) flight path over Elliott Bay, instead of over residential areas in Northwest Seattle, West Seattle and points south.

Environmental Benefits for the Region

The environmental benefits of implementing RNP & OPD procedures at Sea-Tac are impressive. For example, it is estimated that carriers equipped to fly these west side approaches will save a combined 175,000 gallons of jet fuel each month (2.1 million gallons annually).

Even more important, annual greenhouse-gas emissions will be reduced by 22,400 metric tons. That’s the equivalent of taking 4,100 cars off the road every year in the region.

From a noise reduction perspective, communities around Puget Sound will benefit as the project will reduce overflights to more than 300,000 people. Additionally, the idle descent of aircraft will reduce the noise exposure of each overflight for an estimated 750,000 people.*

For more information, view more on our environmental initiatives.

*Estimates based upon population within the affected flight paths.

Making Greener Skies a Reality

Today, Alaska Airlines is the only U.S. carrier with a 100 percent RNP-equipped fleet and fully-trained crews. Horizon's comfortably greener Q400 fleet, which produces 30 percent fewer emissions than a similar size jet and is among the quietest commercial aircraft in the world today, will soon be fully RNP equipped as well.

We're working closely with the FAA, the Port of Seattle, Boeing and others to ensure the environmental benefits of these procedures are realized as soon as possible.