As a way to cut down greenhouse gas emissions Southwest Airlines will be implementing enhanced landing procedures at 11 airports.

According to Environmental Leader, “Under the initiative, called Required Navigation Performance (RNP), pilots and dispatchers follow landing patterns specially designed using global positioning systems (GPS).”

The new system will save the airline $16 million annually just from the initial 11 airports, and savings of over $60 million once the program is instituted at all the company’s airports.

Currently, Birmingham, Boise, Chicago Midway, Los Angeles, Oakland, Oklahoma City, Raleigh-Durham, San Jose and West Palm Beach are already using the new system while Amarillo and Corpus Christi will begin using it on Friday.

The move was made to comply with the new changes mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)’s NextGen Initiative, that is expecting to save more than 1.4 billion gallons of fuel and cut carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 14 million tons by 2018, .

FAA’s NextGen initiative, which plans to overhaul the country’s national airspace system, is also hoping to reduce flight delays by about 21 percent and “provide $22 billion in cumulative benefits to the traveling public, aircraft operators and the FAA” by 2018.

Southwest had to modify 345 of its 3,100 planes for the move.

The move is a big step in the aviation industry that currently accounts for two percent of global emissions.

Airlines across the board are also looking into using biofuels to further reduce emissions. Earlier in November, Lufthansa announced that it will use a biofuel blend made from 50 percent vegetable oil and 50 percent kerosene on daily flights between Hamburg and Frankfurt.

The Airbus A321 will save about 1,500 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, Lufthansa said.

Industry giants British Airways and Airbus, also announced last year that air travel could be powered from “vast seas of algae growing close to airports within four years,” and KLM and Continental have made demonstration flights using alternatives to jet fuel.

British Airways and Airbus are supporting a project at the UK’s Cranfield University to investigate ways of harvesting algae for jet fuel in commercial quantities.

Given that aviation industry is growing by 4 to 5 percent a year, more clearly needs to be done. But this is definitely a step in the right direction.