Over the roar of planes at the Paris Air Show here, U.S. and European Union officials today announced a joint action plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions from aircraft. In the presence of aircraft industry representatives, European Commission vice president responsible for transport Jacques Barrot and Marion Blakey, administrator of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, launched a emissions and noise reduction policy called AIRE.

AIRE - the Atlantic Interoperability Initiative to Reduce Emissions - is the first large-scale environmental initiative bringing together aviation players from both sides of the Atlantic. AIRE will make it possible to speed up the application of new technologies and operational procedures which will have a direct impact in the short and medium term on greenhouse gas emissions, the officials said.

AIRE's new measures include "smooth" or "reduced engine" approaches, which will enable noise and exhaust gas emissions to be reduced during landing. Experiments already carried out with these approaches at Stockholm, Sweden; Louisville, Kentucky; and Atlanta, Georgia have shown substantial savings in fuel and emissions of carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides.