Palermo Falcone Borsellino International Airport (PMO) in Italy is set to become the first airport globally to trial a new emissions management tool from air transport IT provider SITA.
SITA Emissions Manager leverages the technology company’s existing Airport Management solution to enable Palermo Airport to monitor selected scope 3 emissions over a four-month period. This will include analyzing landing and take-off cycles which account for 97% of local annual emissions at an airport on average.
The initiative will integrate various emission data sets to make informed decisions at the airport to drive greater efficiency in apron operations and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The trial will also assess how useful the emissions manager could be in optimizing other sources of scope 3 emissions at the airport, such as aircraft turnaround and ground vehicles.
This partnership comes amid Palermo Airport’s participation in ACI’s Airport Carbon Accreditation program and its adoption of renewable energy which has reduced its carbon emissions from 0.71kg of CO2 per passenger to 0.67kg between 2018 and 2019.
Giovanni Scalia, CEO of Palermo Airport, said, “The environment and the eco-sustainable development of the airport are for us two very important topics that we intend to pursue with a series of interventions.
“The keyword here is ‘sustainability’, and the target is the reduction of our carbon emissions and achieving net-zero by 2050 according to the resolution we signed at the 29th ACI Europe Annual Assembly and Congress in Cyprus [in 2021].
“We are excited to be working with SITA to improve our emission data collection and enable us to make more informed and immediate optimization decisions.”
Sergio Colella, president, Europe, SITA, said, “We are committed to working with our customers and the wider aviation community to make our industry more sustainable by helping them on their journey to decarbonize operations.
“With SITA’s growing portfolio of solutions for airlines and airports, we can immediately impact carbon reduction and help the industry tackle the scope 3 emissions challenge. We are delighted to continue our partnership with Palermo Airport, which is the first airport to trial this new emission management capability.”