# Airport Operations and Sustainability Operational optimization and emissions reduction are the same problem viewed from different angles. Not adjacent. Identical. Every operational inefficiency has a carbon cost. ## The Mechanisms **Departure sequencing.** A [[Pre-Departure Sequencer]] that optimizes the push-back queue reduces average taxi-out time. Less time idling on the taxiway with engines running means less jet fuel burned on the ground. At a mid-size airport doing 200+ daily departures, even 1-2 minutes saved per departure compounds to millions of kilograms of fuel annually. **Turnaround compression.** Tighter coordination between ground handling tasks (enabled by [[Airport Collaborative Decision Making]] milestone sharing) means shorter dwell times. Shorter dwell means less APU runtime. Auxiliary power units burn roughly 100-200 kg of fuel per hour depending on aircraft type. Every minute of APU time eliminated across hundreds of daily turnarounds adds up. **Ground vehicle coordination.** GSE vehicles running optimized routes with fewer empty repositioning movements consume less fuel. Electric GSE ([[Battery Economics]]) amplifies this: coordinated scheduling reduces peak charging demand and extends fleet life. **AMAN/DMAN sequencing.** Arrival management that enables continuous descent approaches instead of level-offs and holding patterns cuts fuel burn in the approach phase. This connects airside optimization to en-route ATM. ## The Business Case A well-optimized mid-size airport can save millions of kilograms of fuel annually, with proportional CO2 reductions and hundreds of hours recovered in turnaround and taxi times. This creates a second business case for optimization investment beyond pure cost savings: measurable, reportable sustainability metrics that increasingly drive airport regulatory compliance and public reporting. ACI's Airport Carbon Accreditation program explicitly rewards operational efficiency measures, not just terminal energy management. The carbon case and the cost case point in the same direction. Rare in most industries. Structural in airports. Related: [[Airport Operations MOC]], [[Pre-Departure Sequencer]], [[Aircraft Turnaround]], [[Battery Economics]], [[Ground Support Equipment Scheduling]] --- Tags: #deeptech #systems #kp