Johannes Jaeckel is from the Friedrich List Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences, Institute of Transport and Economics, Technische Universität Dresden. At last year's GARS Junior Workshop, GARS24, he presented his study "Approach Flight Efficiency at the Lower Airspace of European Airports." The international jury was impressed by his research and decided to pick him as the winner of the Best Paper Prize sponsored with an amount of 600 EUR by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Department of Logistics and Maritime Studies and a book voucher by Routledge.

Johannes' study is part of a larger set of studies on the topic. For a recent publication, please check: Jaekel, J., Hirte, G. & Niemeier, HM. Air traffic control and vertical approach efficiency at the lower airspace. CEAS Aeronaut J (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13272-024-00805-y. The following video shows Johannes presenting (towards the end of the video, second-last speaker): https://youtu.be/2J8r29nfIpQ?si=W0z0s6kUa6cnptoO

Btw, GARS25 will be hosted by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR). We'll meet May 19th for a GARS workshop in which our colleagues from DLR will present their new study about the German aviation market. GARS25 is scheduled May 20th-21st. For all the details, please check https://www.gars.science/.

Alex Brooker from Airside Labs and Wouter de Wulf from the University of Antwerp discusses with Andrew Charlton (Aviation Advocacy) whether the EU is lagging behind other regions such as the US and China in terms of the development of AI. It should be no surprise that the discussion especially focusses on the implications for aviation business and policies.

Stef Proost from KU Leuven and Robert Malina from Hasselt University discuss with Achim I. Czerny (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University) a topic that has been brought up during last year's European Aviation Conference hosted by the University of Antwerp. Stef highlights that the EU greenhouse gas emissions are capped by the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). Robert identifies a realization gap in terms of the supply of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) needed to fulfill the SAF quota imposed by the ReFuelEU Aviation policy. The discussion in this podcast sheds light on the environmental impact of (possibly) missing the SAF quota in the presence of the EU ETS. We also talk about about Carrots (US policy) versus Sticks (EU policy) which had been a big topic in two past podcasts. Please check the following videos for more information:

The EU approach towards decarbonizing aviation: https://youtu.be/dBpk0Hfcmzg

The US SAF Grand Challenge: https://youtu.be/PpsPlKeujcE

The GARS24 School was hosted by our good friends from the University of Antwerp June 2024 as part of the Junior Workshop! A big THANK YOU to the school teachers for their insightful lessons! This year's GARS25 Junior Workshop and School will be hosted by our friends, colleagues and strong supporters from the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) at their facilities in Berlin 19-21 May 2025.

The GARS24 Junior Workshop was hosted by our good friends from the University of Antwerp June 2024! We are grateful for their support and thank all the speakers, discussants and school teachers for their support too! Hope to see you all in Berlin 19-21 May 2025 for the GARS25 Junior Workshop!

Vivien Lau is the Director Airport Freight Forwarding Centre (Hong Kong). The title of her keynote speech at the EAC24 at the University of Antwerp was "How Technological Developments Are Changing Air Cargo Business Now and In The Future." We recorded the video as a backup in case there would have been technological issues at the conference venue. There weren't any technical issues; but it's great to have the video so that we can share it with you now. For more information about the speaker, Vivien Lau, please check her LinkedIn account at linkedin.com/in/vivienlau

One exciting aspect of airports is how different the market environments are depending on the geographic location around the globe. For instance, many new airports are constructed in Asia, whereas new so-called "greenfield" airports are rare in Europe. But, there are two examples. One in Lisbon (Portugal) and the other near Warsaw (Poland). In this podcast, we have two experts discussing what these airport projects have in common and in which aspects they differ from each other. Rosário Macário (CITUA - IST - Universidade de Lisboa; TPR - University of Antwerp) will be sharing her insights about the Lisbon airport project. Piotr Schielmann (Lazarski Aviation Academy) will do the same for the Polish Central Transportation Hub to which the new airport will belong.

The European Aviation Conference 2024 (EAC 24) is approaching. We used October’s webinar on Monday 28th, to share more details about this year’s EAC conference with you (see the below-attached picture). What is the logic behind the agenda, who are the speakers and panelists, and what can you expect? All these questions were answered in the October webinar. The speakers were Dan Elliott (Frontier Economics) and Bill Morrison (Wilfried Laurier University). The webinar was moderated by Andrew Charlton.

Earlier this year a passenger-carrying pilotless eVTOL has obtained a production certificate in China. This is considered a significant leap towards mass production. So, some wonder, what’s the commercial potential of such passenger and, of course, cargo services? This question was discussed in the September webinar.

We had three guest speakers joining the discussion. Anna Straubinger from the Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research Mannheim in Germany, Amin Vafadar from the Advanced Air Mobility Institute in Boston (US), and Philip Butterworth-Hayes who is the Editor of Unmanned Airspace (https://www.unmannedairspace.info/). The webinar was moderated by Andrew Charlton.

The EACI/GARS webinars usually take place every last Monday of a month at 1 pm CEST. Please mark the dates in your calendar! If you are new to the series, please register at: https://forms.office.com/r/TN0Wse1sAd

The August webinar shaded light on the relationships among five associations. The associations are (in alphabetical order) the Air Transport Research Society (ATRS), the European Aviation Conference Institute (EACI), the German Aviation Research Society (GARS), the International Transportation Economics Association (ITEA), and the Symposium on Aviation Research (SOAR). Guest speakers are Martin Dresner from the University of Maryland for ATRS, Erik Verhoef from VU Amsterdam for ITEA, Gianmaria Martini from the University of Bergamo for SOAR, and I from The HK PolyU for EACI and GARS. Andrew Charlton from Aviation Advocacy was so kind to moderate the webinar.

This is the July webinar of our monthly series of webinars. The webinars take place every last Monday of a month at 1 pm CE(S)T. Please mark the dates in your calendar!

The guest speaker is Gary Cutts. He is the Challenge Director of the Future Flight, UK Research and Innovation initiative involving a £300m programme to research, plan and demonstrate new integrated systems of aviation using low-carbon and autonomous technologies. We are pleased to announce that Gary will be one of the keynote speakers at this year’s European Aviation Conference hosted by the University of Antwerp in Belgium. The moderator is Andrew Charlton (Aviation Advocacy). For more information, check https://youtu.be/8yDNVXMGSpUv.

If you are new to the series, please register at: https://forms.office.com/r/TN0Wse1sAd

In an extra edition of our series of monthly webinars, we have already discussed the US approach towards the greening of aviation. This month’s regular edition of the webinar series, concentrates on EU aviation policies. The guest speaker is Damien Meadows. He is an Advisor on European and International Carbon Markets of the European Commission’s DG Climate Action. He also is a contributor to a recently published book titled “Delivering a Climate Neutral Europe” published by Routledge (who also kindly sponsors the GARS Junior Award with book vouchers). The moderator is Andrew Charlton (Aviation Advocacy).

The EACI/GARS webinars take place every last Monday of a month at 1 pm CEST. Please mark the dates in your calendar! If you are new to the series, please register at: https://forms.office.com/r/TN0Wse1sAd

The moderator was Andrew Charlton (Aviation Advocacy).  The guest speaker was Samar Abbas Nawaz (Peace Research Institute, Oslo).