Published on: 2026-11-08
Source: United Nations – United Nations –
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November 8, 2026 Economic Development
Traffic jams in the sky cost airlines billions of dollars and often turn air travel into exhausting ordeals. However, some countries have already proven that closer coordination saves thousands of hours of flight time and reduces emissions. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) wants to spread this experience worldwide.
Most frequent flyers know this feeling: the plane starts its descent, but instead of landing, it unexpectedly begins to circle over the airport. The reason is far from always related to a malfunction or bad weather. Often it involves the so-called holding pattern, when the aircraft is forced to remain in the air until a landing spot becomes available.
This is just one manifestation of the increasingly congested airspace, where a storm, emergency, or route closure in one region can cause delays thousands of kilometers away from the source of the problem.
The cost of such disruptions is enormous. According to the European air traffic management organization EUROCONTROL, in 2025 alone, delays related to air traffic management in Europe cost the industry more than 2.3 billion dollars.
Green light for landing
What if countries coordinated air traffic the same way cities synchronize traffic lights?
It is on this idea that the initiative of the International Civil Aviation Organization — a specialized UN agency that sets global standards in the field of aviation — is based.
“If traffic lights operate independently from each other, traffic turns into chaos, and traffic jams occur at every intersection,” said ICAO Secretary General Juan Carlos Salazar in an interview with the UN News Service. “If you get a green light on one street, but have to stop at the next intersection, congestion begins to build up almost immediately. The same happens with air traffic in the airspace.”
© Weedezign/Adobe Stock By 2050, the number of air passengers worldwide could reach 12.4 billion people.
If the airport knows in advance that it will not be able to accept additional flights for a certain period of time, it can coordinate its actions with other airports and temporarily delay departures, instead of forcing planes to circle in the air for hours.
This approach is called “air traffic flow management.” It allows airlines, airports, air traffic control services, and meteorological centers to exchange information in real time and jointly make decisions to reduce the number of delays and improve the efficiency of the entire system.
The “snowball” effect
Several countries already use such a system, but its advantages are limited because national systems do not yet interact with each other. Following five days of negotiations in Montreal, organized by ICAO, governments and industry representatives expressed support for faster global implementation of the system.
For passengers, this should mean earlier warnings about cancellations and delays, as well as faster troubleshooting when problems arise.
“When people arrive at the airport, wait all day, and no one tells them anything, it creates huge problems,” Salazar said.
He explained that system failures have a “snowball” effect. A problem lasting an hour or a day affects all subsequent flights, and the modern system slowly recovers normal operation.
Time, money, and fuel
The advantages of the new approach can already be appreciated. In North and South America, joint trials conducted with ICAO support saved over 265,000 minutes of flight time (about 4,400 hours) and more than 38.9 million dollars in 2026.
Unsplash/J. McArthur In Europe, delays related to air traffic management cost the industry more than $2.3 billion in 2025.
In addition, about 13,330 tons of fuel were saved and 42,160 tons of carbon dioxide emissions were prevented, contributing to the goal of achieving ‘net zero’ carbon emissions in international aviation by 2050.
In Europe, the EUROCONTROL program, which involves forecasting weather conditions and airspace congestion, helped avoid delays totaling about 3.1 million minutes from May to August 2026, saving an estimated 448 million dollars and improving network stability by 14 percent.
The most difficult part is the exchange of information
According to Salazar, Brazil and Colombia have been using similar systems for many years, but mainly at the national level.
“Technology alone is not the solution,” he said. “Information exchange is necessary, but often it does not happen — sometimes due to lack of coordination, sometimes due to a shortage of means to transmit data in real time.
“A flight from Europe to Australia or New Zealand passes through four or five regions, and this requires excellent coordination, which does not exist today,” the head of ICAO noted. “No single country or region, acting alone, is capable of handling this task.”
ICAO, which has 193 member states, sets common standards and provides technical assistance so that countries can coordinate their actions regardless of available resources. The new international air traffic management rules are set to take effect in November 2030, with regional workshops scheduled for 2027.
Loaded Sky
According to ICAO forecasts, by 2050 the number of air passengers worldwide may reach 12.4 billion people.
Other problems are also accumulating. Conflicts force airlines to change routes, avoiding dangerous zones, which creates new “bottlenecks.” Drones, air taxis, rocket launches, and unplanned returns of objects from orbit – all this requires closer coordination.
For Juan Carlos Salazar, the ultimate goal of the innovations is crystal clear: “A system of air transportation accessible to every person in the world is needed so that everyone can experience the benefits of connectivity [between countries and continents].”
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