Boeing is continuing to work with industry, regulators, airlines and airports to implement advanced Air Traffic Management concepts that provide short-term opportunities to improve environmental performance of the air transportation system. The most notable example is the Boeing-developed Tailored Arrivals concept, which increases airplane arrival efficiency by establishing a predictable continuous descent rather than the current fuel intensive step-down descent. What makes an approach a Tailored Arrival is that controllers are able to look over an aircraft's flight path from the top of descent to landing and “tailor” it to avoid conditions that might slow it down.

Tailored Arrivals was a key element of three ASPIRE (Asia & South Pacific Initiative to Reduce Emissions) demonstration flights in 2008. In one of the ASPIRE flights, conducted by United Airlines, a Tailored Arrivals approach, along with the use of 10 other fuel-saving initiatives from gate to gate, helped to reduce the use of fuel by 1,564 gallons and cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 32,656 pounds as the 747-400 flew from Sydney, Australia to San Francisco.

Tailored Arrivals has been in regular use by four airlines at San Francisco International Airport since December 2007. Over a year's time—from Dec. 3, 2007 through Dec. 3, 2008—Tailored Arrivals reduced fuel use by 1.1 million pounds (523,862 kilograms) and CO2 emissions by 3.6 million pounds (1.6 million kilograms) for the airlines that used the procedure—United, Air New Zealand, Qantas and JAL. The results cover 1,000 flights.

As the leader of Tailored Arrivals development, Boeing has been using its worldwide reach to bring together a range of international companies comprised of airlines, industry and Air Navigation Service Providers to ensure that Tailored Arrival solutions and procedures are globally interoperable.

Since 2004, successful trials of the Tailored Arrivals concept have been conducted at airports in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands and at San Francisco. Design activity has been under way to extend Tailored Arrivals to airports in Miami and Los Angeles.

The benefits being catalogued by Tailored Arrivals include significant reductions in fuel burn, CO2 emissions and flight time for participating airlines as well as reductions in noise for surrounding communities.