- After the success of the deployment in Brest in March, Thales’s Green Flag Orchestrator tool has been implemented at the Reims Area Control Centre (ACC) in France, reducing the consumption of fuel per optimised flight by 200 to 300kg.
- Green Flag Orchestrator provides Air Navigation Services Providers (ANSPs) with more eco-friendly ‘opportunities’, allowing airlines to optimize flight plans, thereby reducing plane fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
- This initiative is part of the EU-funded SESAR JU CONCERTO project, which aims to optimize CO2 reduction opportunities and integrate sustainable air traffic control practices.
Thales and France’s Direction des Services de la Navigation Aérienne (DSNA) announce the successful implementation of the Green Flag Orchestrator solution at the Reims Area Control Centre (ACC) in France. This milestone marks a new significant step towards more sustainable aviation and aligns with the European Union’s environmental goals to reduce 90% of CO2 emissions by 2040.
Using advanced decision-making algorithms, Thales’s Green Flag Orchestrator is a tool for ANSPs to manage ATC (Air Traffic Control) ‘constraints’ – restrictions imposed by ATC to ensure the safe and efficient movement of aircraft through controlled airspace, such as altitude restrictions. This tool automatically identifies and suggests ‘opportunities’ to relax some of these ‘constraints’, which are then proposed to airlines, enabling them to optimise their flight plans, thus reducing fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. By ensuring automation and digital coordination, this solution optimizes ANSPs’ workload, while maintaining the same levels of safety and capacity.
This deployment is part of the EU-funded SESAR JU CONCERTO project, which focuses on integrating new technologies and concepts to reduce CO2 emissions and introduce non-CO2 impact management into daily operations. As part of this project, all CONCERTO partners are working to integrate green air traffic control capabilities into the system, balancing capacity and environmental performance.
“The integration of the Green Flag concept at Brest and Reims ACCs aligns with our commitment to promoting a greener aviation industry. This initiative is a crucial step in our environmental strategy and supports our goal of reducing the sector’s carbon footprint.” Florence Serdot-Omer, Head of Unit Validation of Concept and new Technologies at DSNA.
“Combining advanced algorithms and collaborative tools, the Green Flag Orchestrator empowers Air Navigation Service Providers and airlines to make environmentally conscious decisions, and unlock numerous opportunities for flight path optimization, paving the way for a more sustainable future in air traffic management.” David Antonello, ATM Green Operations Lead at Thales, and CONCERTO project leader
“Congratulations to Thales and DSNA for the successful deployment of the Green Flag Orchestrator in Reims and Brest. This achievement, delivered through the SESAR CONCERTO project, is a great example of the SESAR innovation pipeline in action—transforming promising ideas into tools that deliver immediate environmental benefits. By accelerating the uptake of eco-efficient solutions like this, we are helping to make Europe’s skies more sustainable, flight by flight.” Andreas Boschen, Executive Director, SESAR Joint Undertaking.
About SESAR JU CONCERTO Project
CONCERTO is an EU-funded project supported by the SESAR Joint Undertaking within the framework of the Horizon Europe programme, which aims to use state-of-the-art climate science, and collaboration between Air Traffic Management (ATM) stakeholders to reduce the total CO2 and non-CO2 emissions.
CONCERTO stands for dynamiC cOllaboratioN to generalize eCo-friEndly tRajecTOries.
It aims to develop two solutions to help maximize the opportunities for reducing CO2 emissions, and to introduce the management of non-CO2 impacts into day-to-day operations:
Solution #1: an Orchestrator for Eco Friendly Operations
Solution #2: a Traffic Flow Optimizer based on Total Climate Impact
CONCERTO brings together 23 partners: Air France, AirNav Ireland, AirSupport Group, Borealis Alliance (Avinor Air Navigation Services, IDS AirNav, Estonian Air Navigation Services (EANS)/Lennuliiklusteeninduse AS, Fintraffic ANS, Isavia ANS, Latvijas Gaisa Satiksme (LGS), LFV, Naviair, NATS), Deep Blue, Delft University of Technology, Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD), Direction Generale de l’Aviation Civile (DSNA), ENAV, EUROCONTROL, German Aerospace Center (DLR), Icelandair, SESAR 3 Joint Undertaking, Thales, Tudelft.
About DSNA
DSNA (Direction des Services de la Navigation Aérienne), the French Air Navigation Service Provider, handled 3.4 million flights in 2024.This is its absolute record! Traffic in France is characterized by increasingly fluctuating demand with strong seasonal variations and high peaks, having reached its daily traffic peak on 5 July 2024 with 11,632 flights, a record in Europe. Structure of handled traffic: 57% overflights, 34% international flights and 9% domestic flights.
DSNA is committed to a new strategy “DSNA 2030”, to position DSNA as an efficient, modern, and eco-responsible air navigation service provider, containing costs.
Key Data: 5 ACCs & 70 Control Towers & 3 overseas regional structures / Staff: 7,000 / Traffic: 3.4 million flights in 2024.
About Thales
Thales (Euronext Paris: HO) is a global leader in advanced technologies for the Defence, Aerospace, and Cyber & Digital sectors. Its portfolio of innovative products and services addresses several major challenges: sovereignty, security, sustainability and inclusion.
The Group invests more than €4 billion per year in Research & Development in key areas, particularly for critical environments, such as Artificial Intelligence, cybersecurity, quantum and cloud technologies. Thales has more than 83,000 employees in 68 countries. In 2024, the Group generated sales of €20.6 billion.
Press contactS
Thales Media Relations pressroom@thalesgroup.com