Why do planes keep circling before landing? The UN has a plan to fix it

Air traffic delays cost billions and turn journeys into ordeals. Some countries are already proving that better coordination saves thousands of flying hours and cuts emissions – and the UN’s aviation agency wants the rest of the world to follow.Most frequent flyers know the feeling: the plane begins its descent but, instead of heading for the runway, starts circling overhead.It isn’t necessarily a fault or bad weather. Often, it is a holding pattern – a manoeuvre that keeps aircraft airborne until there is room for them to land.It is one symptom of increasingly crowded skies, where a storm, an emergency or a closed route in one place can cause delays thousands of kilometres away.The bill is enormous. In Europe alone, air traffic management delays cost an estimated $2.3 billion or more in 2025, according to EUROCONTROL, the continent’s air navigation body.Green lightWhat if countries coordinated their flights the way a city synchronises its traffic lights?That is the idea behind a push by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the UN agency that sets global aviation standards.“If the traffic lights work independently, traffic becomes chaos and there are jams on every ...