On 17 June, the SESAR JU announced the winners of the 2021 Digital European Sky Awards, celebrating the best of research and innovation in air traffic management in Europe.

The five winning projects were selected from a shortlist, following rigorous evaluation by a distinguished jury and a public vote. The awarded projects are emblematic of the work underway to deliver smarter and more sustainable air transport, across all three strands of research which make up the SESAR innovation pipeline.

Sustainability

The category recognised projects offering multifaceted solutions to reducing ATM’s impact on the environment (noise and emissions), contributing towards making Europe the most environmentally-friendly sky to fly in the world. 

The winning project, Flying Air Traffic Management for the benefit of environment and climate – FlyATM4E, is developing a concept to identify climate-optimised aircraft trajectories, which enable a robust and eco-efficient reduction in aviation’s climate impact. Climate optimisation will consider CO2 and non-CO2 effects, such as contrails and contrail-cirrus, water vapour, NOx and particulate emissions.