BRUSSELS – The EUROCONTROL and ACI Europe climate resilience guidance, titled “Adapting European Aviation to a Changing Climate: Guidance on Risk Assessment and Adaptation”, has been jointly released to provide a comprehensive framework for airports, airlines and air navigation service providers (ANSPs). The new document is designed to help the sector prepare for, and adapt to, the escalating impacts of climate change, ensuring that European aviation can continue to operate safely, reliably and efficiently in increasingly challenging conditions.
The publication comes at a time when the European aviation community is intensifying efforts to achieve net zero CO₂ emissions. These efforts include the DESTINATION 2050 roadmap at sector level, airport-specific Net Zero pledges and the ACI Airport Carbon Accreditation programme. At the same time, European aviation is facing mounting exposure to rising temperatures, shifting precipitation patterns and more frequent extreme weather events. These changes pose growing risks to operational continuity, infrastructure integrity, safety, connectivity and economic performance. The EUROCONTROL and ACI Europe climate resilience guidance builds on existing actions by providing a structured roadmap that enables stakeholders to anticipate climate risks and embed long-term resilience into planning and investment decisions.
Introducing the guidance, Raúl Medina, Director General of EUROCONTROL, stated: “Europe is projected to be the fastest-warming continent, making climate adaptation no longer optional but both an operational necessity and a strategic imperative. Under EUROCONTROL’s Trajectory 2030 Strategy, we are fully committed to supporting the aviation sector in adapting to the impacts of climate change while reinforcing the resilience of our stakeholders’ operations and infrastructure.
Through this new guidance, we aim to raise awareness, provide actionable recommendations and showcase real-world examples that demonstrate what effective adaptation looks like. This marks a pivotal step toward ensuring that the entire European aviation network, from airports and airlines to ANSPs, can anticipate and adapt to the climate challenges through coordinated, science-based action.”
From the airport perspective, Olivier Jankovec, Director General of ACI Europe, commented: “Climate action is more than ever a non-negotiable imperative. As such, it involves not only reducing green house gases but also adapting our aviation infrastructure to a fast changing climate. This is precisely what this new Guidance is all about, providing a practical and comprehensive toolkit allowing to integrate mitigation and adaptation strategies. Boosting the resilience of our aviation system also comes down to safeguarding Europe’s competitiveness – by protecting and future proofing the essential economic and social benefits of air connectivity. This is core to our mission at ACI Europe and of course to our longstanding cooperation with EUROCONTROL.”
The EUROCONTROL and ACI Europe climate resilience guidance sets out practical steps and strategic priorities for all aviation stakeholders. On infrastructure adaptation, it highlights the need to upgrade drainage and cooling systems, reinforce runways and taxiways, and deploy nature-based solutions to manage flooding, heat stress and soil instability. These measures are aimed at protecting critical assets from both gradual climate trends and acute weather events.
In terms of operational resilience, the guidance recommends enhancing flight planning and scheduling processes to better account for temperature extremes, wind shifts and storm disruptions. It also underlines the importance of improving turbulence forecasting and strengthening emergency preparedness, so that airlines, airports and ANSPs can maintain continuity of service during adverse conditions and minimise knock-on disruption across the network.
Resource management is identified as another key pillar. The document calls for targeted responses to water scarcity and fluctuating energy demand, including the deployment of efficient technologies and sustainable operational practices. This is aligned with broader decarbonisation efforts, ensuring that adaptation and mitigation are approached in an integrated way.
The EUROCONTROL and ACI Europe climate resilience guidance also stresses biodiversity integration. It encourages stakeholders to manage wildlife risks in a way that is compatible with aviation safety, while at the same time leveraging ecosystems for natural climate regulation and resilience. This includes, where appropriate, nature-based solutions that support both environmental objectives and operational reliability.
Finally, collaborative planning is positioned as essential to effective adaptation. The guidance advocates stronger coordination among airports, airlines, ANSPs and external partners to ensure continuity of critical services and to address cascading climate risks that can arise across interconnected systems. This whole-of-network approach reflects the reality that climate impacts do not respect organisational or national boundaries.
Produced in close collaboration with representatives from airports, air navigation service providers, airlines, and aviation staff and trade associations, the guide has been developed by the European Climate Change Adaptation Working Group. This group was set up in 2022 by EUROCONTROL and ACI Europe, joined by 37 partner organisations, with the explicit aim of preparing the European aviation sector for the impacts of climate change. The EUROCONTROL and ACI Europe climate resilience guidance is a follow up to the Aviation Preparations for Winter 2023 Adverse Weather report and the Adapting Aviation to a Changing Climate briefing note published in November 2024, consolidating previous work into a more comprehensive and actionable reference.
By providing a common methodology for risk assessment and a portfolio of adaptation options, the EUROCONTROL and ACI Europe climate resilience guidance is intended to support strategic decision-making at corporate, operational and policy levels. It offers European aviation stakeholders a science-based, cooperative framework to safeguard connectivity, protect infrastructure and sustain economic performance in the face of a rapidly changing climate.
Tags: Raúl Medina, EUROCONTROL, Olivier Jankovec, ACI Europe
