Airlines are defending their record over pollution
By Daniel Solon Published: June 4, 2007
When Ryanair, the low-cost airline based in Ireland, recently offered European flights for as little as one British penny each way, environmental activists greeted the bargain with more protests than thanks.
"They do not take into account the environmental costs which this imposes," said Liliane Spendeler, secretary general in Spain for Friends of the Earth. "There is an enormous price for the planet, which the airlines do not pay, but which all of us must bear."
In response to such attacks, the low-cost carriers say they are the most environmentally friendly sector of the industry, flying mostly modern fuel-efficient aircraft and filling more seats than traditional airlines.
All the airlines - traditional carriers and low-fare companies alike - say that aviation plays a far smaller role in generating global carbon dioxide emissions than road traffic and power plants, and it produces only slightly more damaging emissions than surface ocean shipping.
Manufacturers are using lighter materials to build airliners and powering them with more fuel-efficient jet engines. Airlines are pressing air controllers and airports to shorten and simplify routes and landing approaches. The aim is not just to save the planet. It is also to save jet fuel, a major operating cost.
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Within that context, low-cost carriers are "the most environmentally friendly sector of the industry," John Hanlon, the secretary general of the European Low Fares Airlines Association, or ELFAA, said in January.
The association, based in Brussels, represents 11 low-fare operators, headed by the two largest, Ryanair and EasyJet, and also including Transavia.com, the Dutch low-fare subsidiary of Air France-KLM.
"Ongoing investment in new aircraft reduced average fleet age among ELFAA members to just 3.9 years," Hanlon said. That compares with a global airline average of around 11 years, industry sources said.
Association members carried 106 million passengers last year - about 30 percent of all scheduled air traffic within Europe - and filled 83 percent of their seats, compared with an average 76.5 percent among traditional European airlines.
The combination of high seat density and high load factors "minimized fuel burn and resultant CO2 emissions per passenger-kilometer, " Hanlon said. It "demonstrates that the low-cost/low-fares business model is highly environmentally sustainable, in addition to continuing to deliver substantial tangible benefit to the European economy and consumers."
Ryanair, which now flies only Boeing 737-800s, after retiring the last of its older 737-200s last year, has a current average fleet age of 2.5 years, and claims to have reduced fuel consumption and CO2 emissions by 45 percent over the past eight years.
Simply attaching upturned "winglets" to the tips of its planes' wings has reduced fuel consumption by 4 percent, while a policy of avoiding large hub airports has shortened taxi time between runways and loading gates and minimized wasteful holding patterns, it says on its Web site.
EasyJet has bought 100 new Airbus A319s over the past three-and-a-half years to replace older Boeing 737s, its chief executive, Andrew Harrison, said. He said the company only serves airports with good public transport links, minimizing the amount of traffic by private cars.
Marion Blakey, head of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, has been emphasizing that planes are not the worst polluters. She said last month: "Cars and trucks represent 21 percent of greenhouse gases, power plants 33 percent. Aviation comes in at less than three" percent.
The U.S. aviation market, the largest in the world, consumed 5 percent less fuel in 2006 than in 2000, while moving 12 percent more passengers, she said.
American Airlines, the world's largest passenger carrier, says it is saving more than 90 million gallons, or 340 million liters, a year of fuel through basic measures like encouraging pilots to taxi on just one engine where conditions permit.
None of this may satisfy Friends of the Earth; but it does at least reflect an industry that recognizes that it has a problem - at least in terms of the public's perception. |
