RESTORE implements innovative solutions to green airports. The project responds to the Green Deal call by addresses connectivity of secondary airports via smart multimodal travelling initiatives; promotes effective use of renewable energy sources and lower energy/ water/waste consumption at the terminal; and develops novel technology and processes for clean ground operations and emissions free aircraft ground movement. The project promotes a high level of replication and ensures stakeholder buy-in by developing a cost benefit analysis and multicriteria methods to evaluate the impact of the solutions implemented on the environment. Aviation plays a vital role to the EU?s sustainable economic growth and cohesion. However, it presents environmental challenges. It is therefore important to revisit the opportunities for environmental gains and sustainable growth of the sector. The liberalization of the market some two decades ago led to the introduction of low-cost carriers (LCCs). This changed the European aviation scene with LCCs experiencing unprecedented growth. Their large fleet and short haul, quick turnaround strategy maximizes aircraft utilization, making them major emitters in the sector. It is expected that in the future, short haul and regional flights will continue to dominate the European sky. With the introduction of LCCs, the role of secondary airports changed, and these now act as their main hubs.
Airports play a major role in transport and act as multimodal nodes in larger transportation networks. Yet, while the innermost European cities have become congested, paradoxically, the outermost regions including secondary airports remain poorly connected. By addressing secondary and regional airports, RESTORE takes advantage of the large fleet and high aircraft utilization to maximize impact from greener initiatives in and around airport communities. This urgently reduces the GHG emissions and increase the contribution of airports to mitigate climate change.