Airline Companies Try to Go Green - 7/6/08

As energy prices soar and climate change awareness grows, more Americans are buying hybrid cars, outfitting their homes with low-energy light bulbs and worrying about the distance their food travels from farm to their plate. But when it comes to air travel, how many pay attention to the jet fuel their flights consume and the carbon emissions those planes create?

Although flying represents only 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, that share is likely to rise as air traffic grows. The Federal Aviation Administration says commercial flights in the U.S. alone will increase 60% by 2030.

Passenger jets are about a 1/3 more fuel-efficient than those built 40 years ago, and their design continues to improve. But worldwide traffic growth is projected to outstrip efficiency improvements, leading to an increase of carbon dioxide emissions from aviation of 3-4% per year, according to the 2007 report of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

"Going forward, climate change could be the most significant challenge facing aviation," said Daniel Elwell, the FAA's assistant administrator for aviation policy, planning and the environment. "We could run up against environmental limits to aviation growth before we run into actual concrete infrastructure limits at airports."

Already, the European Union is pushing for international airlines to pay for the carbon gases they create. Europe's nascent cap-and-trade system would be expanded to limit the amount of CO2 airlines could release, saddling them with extra costs if they exceed those caps and allowing them to sell off credits if fuel consumption is lowered.

But the method for regulating aviation emissions is complicated, because the pollutants are largely produced outside easy national borders.

Major U.S. airlines, represented by the Air Transport Association, have balked at any regulation proposal. The carriers argue that jet fuel prices - their largest cost of business - act as a carbon tax, providing all the incentive they need to conserve.

Regardless, the next U.S. president will face growing pressure to adopt cap-and-trade legislation that includes aviation. Recently, the Senate killed the proposed Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, which would have forced refineries to pay for the CO2 emitted in fuel production, a cost they probably would have passed on to airlines and other petroleum-dependent industries.

"The notion that any substantial sector can be excused is unlikely," said Jonathan Pershing, a U.S. and international climate change policy expert at the World Resources Institute, a Washington-based environmental think tank." Aviation emissions are growing faster than any other transportation sector and ultimately will account for as much 5 percent of global emissions unless those are accounted for or curtailed. It's bigger than steel."

Rising fuel prices have forced airlines to enact conservation measures that have the side benefit of curbing emissions. In March, Southwest Airlines started flying at slower speeds, a remedy Northwest Airlines and JetBlue Airways also employ. Slowing down adds just minutes to flying times, but could save Southwest 18 million gallons of jet fuel this year, said company spokeswoman Whitney Eichinger.

Southwest also uses its now-iconic curved winglets to reduce drag on its newer Boeing 737-700s and some of its older 737-300s. Other airlines, including AirTran Airways, have installed them, creating fuel savings of 3 to 4% on an average 737-700 flight, the Air Transport Association said.

American Airlines has its aircraft taxi on one engine whenever possible and, similar to AirTran and Southwest, uses ground power instead of the plane's unit to provide electricity and air conditioning at many gates.

Financially strapped airlines such as Delta, American and United plan to retire some aging, gas-guzzling planes. But the economic slowdown also means carriers have delayed or canceled the delivery of more fuel-efficient jets.

Commercial service on Boeing's new 787 jetliners won't debut until the third quarter of 2009, a delivery date pushed back three times. The 787 is the first jumbo jet to be built primarily of lighter carbon-fiber composites, requiring 20% less fuel than a comparable aluminum-bodied plane, Boeing says. So far, few orders for the 787 jetliners are from U.S. carriers. Until Congress upgrades the nation's 1950s-era air traffic control system to fully support satellite navigation, airlines have less motivation to purchase newly outfitted planes, said Elwell of the FAA.

Planes will be able to fly closer together on more direct routes under the satellite system, reducing fuel burn. Improvements already have come as the required vertical distance between planes flying in the stratosphere was halved to 1,000 feet in 2005, he said. The FAA also opened new routes recently over the Atlantic Ocean to allow planes to fly more efficient trips from New York to the Caribbean.

The satellite technology also would reduce emissions and noise generated during arrivals, by allowing aircraft to remain at higher altitudes longer and use less power as they descend toward a destination, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report. Overall, full implementation of the new "NextGen" air-traffic-control system could reduce aviation emissions up to 12 percent by 2025, according to the FAA.

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