Welcome to this Pilot and Air traffic controller refresher course on Continuous Descent Operations (CDO). We hope that the information you will find here will help you to understand the impact that you can have on the ability of flight crews to fly CDOs and Continuous Climb Operations (CCO).

As a society, we know that we have to reduce CO2-emissions if we are to avoid the severe consequences of climate change. The stakeholders in the air transport industry have been working on many fronts to reduce fuel burn and emissions for each flight. One important factor in this effort, is to optimise flight profiles to avoid unnecessary fuel burn.

ATCOs have an important role to play in enabling flight crews to optimise their aircraft climb and descent profiles. This has the added advantage of reducing noise around airports and reducing fuel costs for the airlines.

This online course can provide the theoretical basis for understanding CDO and act as an enabler for you to facilitate more CDOs, and CDOs from higher levels, to the extent possible in your operational environment.

By the end of the course, you should be able to:

Explain what CDO and CCO are
List the benefits of CCO/CDO
Explain the factors that affect CCO/CDO
Describe the impact of airspace/procedures design on CCO/CDO
Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of open and closed STARs
Discuss how ATC instructions can affect the energy management of an aircraft
Explain how ATC can facilitate CDO
And we hope that by the end of the course you will be encouraged to enable more aircraft to fly CDOs from higher levels.We also hope that you will enjoy the course.