Cover Story

Changing altitudes and attitudes

With climate change becoming a growing matter of concern, the spotlight is on aviation for its contribution to environment pollution. Nevertheless, some of the international airports are accelerating the implementation of initiatives that will minimise this impact - emissions, noise and air quality being top priorities. By Amal Tewari

The airline industry has been receiving a lot of criticism due to its adverse effects on the environment - carbon emissions, global warming, air pollution, noise, it's all there. The industry that once was the pinnacle of technological progression is now being labelled as a threat to the planet, an affliction on the environment.

Nevertheless, over the past few decades, the industry has made significant improvements on the issue of climate change. The switch from paper tickets to e-tickets has been made mandatory and will save the airline industry billions of dollars annually. The biggest transformation that this will bring about will be on the environment, since the dependence on paper (and trees) will be eliminated.

Even aircraft performance has been enhanced resulting in the elimination of soot, reduction in noise by 75 per cent, reduction in carbon by 70 per cent and increase in fuel efficiency by 70 per cent. World airline organisations have been coming together each year to make a joint endeavour to confront this daunting task of climate change. The recently concluded 'Aviation and Environment Summit' in Geneva and the Pacific Asia Travel Association's (PATA) CEO Challenge in Bangkok were major events that brought together the entire travel and tourism industry. These events were a crucial juncture in the move towards dealing with the predicament of climate change.

In his speech at the summit in Geneva, the Director General of The Airports Council International, Robert J Aaronson, said, "Despite best efforts, airports can find themselves under heavy fire from environmental protestors, as we saw at Heathrow last summer. Airports are easy to reach and target, so it is not surprising that we have seen radical accusations crystallising into militant action right on our doorstep."

Illustrating this point, just two months ago, two environmental activists from the climate action group, Plane Stupid, had climbed onto the roof of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh to protest against plans for expansion of Scottish airports. One of the activists, Adam Weymouth, said from the rooftop, "The climate scientists have made it clear - we have to stop airport expansion. That's why we've taken it to the top."

To clear the air on the misconceptions regarding the impact of aviation, Aaronson also said in his speech, "What is more worrying is that many of the accusations levelled at the industry are based on false assumptions and misinformation. So it is our job collectively to set the facts straight… acknowledging aviation's impact and explaining our solutions. At airports, we are accelerating the implementation of initiatives that minimise impact on the environment - emissions, noise and air quality being top airport priorities."

Together for a global cause

The issues discussed and the ideas proposed at both the events were analogous, validating the problem of climate change to be global, and the solution to be universal. PATA's CEO Challenge was greatly respected and received scores of accolades from the industry. Sir Richard Branson, chairman of Virgin Atlantic, said, "I strongly welcome PATA's initiative," while Tony Tyler, CEO of Cathay Pacific, commented, "One of the most important issues of our time."

President and CEO of PATA, Peter de Jong, expressed his views concerning the CEO Challenge, saying, "The event has definitely delivered on our goals, with so many good ideas, innovative programmes and practical solutions, and, most importantly, opportunities for collaborative action".

At the PATA CEO Challenge, Paul Steele from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) environment division, delivered a presentation of the results and conclusions from the Aviation and Environment Summit, thus bridging the two events together; 'global futurist' Rohit Talwar (CEO, Fast Future), Andrew Herdman (director general of Association of Asia Pacific Airlines) and Peter Harbison (executive chairman, Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation) along with other delegates, summarised the outcomes of the CEO Challenge. Together they defined the ways and means needed to confront climate change in the airline industry:

Communicating and educating

"Don't shy away from climate change issues: start the discussion with your management team and agree the priority," said Rohit Talwar in his presentation. The aviation industry can benefit from the ready-made support available through environment suppliers such as Green Globe. These programmes can reduce overhead and operating costs and can bring global recognition to the company. "Create a compelling vision and ensure support and buy-in from internal as well as external stakeholders," said Talwar.

Communication will be the key both inside and outside the industry. Inside the industry, environmental issues will need to be discussed with staff and management, and priorities need to be dealt with, while on the outside, identifying and educating environment issues to the consumers and stakeholders will be the important task. At the Geneva summit, director general and CEO of IATA, Giovanni Bisignani said, "Over 40 airlines have used IATA's print ads and environment video on board and we are working with our member airlines and airports to roll out environmental stands." Introducing incentives into the supply chain and to the customers will help influence good environmental conduct and will raise environmental awareness.

Zero-emission strategy

In his speech at the summit, Bisignani said, "Our goal is zero emissions. And to indicate a time frame, the challenge that I laid out was to develop carbon-emission-free technology in 50 years." Reducing or even eliminating carbon emissions was the main plan at this year's Aviation and Climate Change Summit. To put this plan into action, aircraft operations and new technology will have to be incorporated into the process. The flight path and the fuel consumption will have to be optimised for better efficiency. Some airlines have already integrated this into their flight plans. Airlines that use the method of flying at slower consistent speeds, while adding only around five minutes to each flight time, manage to conserve hundreds of gallons of fuel for each flight. This not only saves the company millions of dollars in fuel cost each year, but also aids in the reduction of emissions.

United Airlines has invested in a flight planning software that will enable their pilots to choose the best routes to take and the most efficient speeds to fly at. But even these 'optimised routes' run according to government borders. Certain 'no fly zones' and restricted airspaces are allocated by the government for areas of national security. Airlines have to fly around these 'no entry' skies, travelling extra distances and burning extra fuel. This problem can only be tackled politically, not technically or economically. "'Embarrassing' is the most polite word that I can find for Europe's failure to implement a Single European Sky that could deliver 12 million tons of CO2 savings. We have had nearly 20 years of talks and no results," said Bisignani. Governments need to reach a consensus in order to deploy these optimised flying highways.

Other operations include engineering to reduce the weight of aircrafts to minimise load and maximise performance. Many worldwide airports have the provision of another engineering resolution, the Continuous Descent Approach (CDA), which is a landing descent method that reduces noise levels, fuel consumption and emissions: instead of the conventional step descent, the aircraft descends following a continuous path along the descent angle.

'Alternative' thinking

Alternative fuels are the 'turn of the century' solutions for combating climate change, and airlines need to make a changeover from their single fuel dependency. Airlines, manufacturers and suppliers in the aviation industry can partner together to commence research for alternative airline fuels. "We thought that running a jet on bio-fuel was a 5-year project but we achieved it in less than a year using both an Airbus and a Boeing aircraft," said Bisignani.

Using alternative sources of energy such as solar power, bio-fuels and hydrogen cells, will greatly reduce energy costs and emissions. Airlines such as Airbus, Boeing, Virgin and Air New Zealand have already set the ball rolling by conducting their tests for alternative and bio fuels. "Alternative fuels are also part of the effort. Manufacturers are aggressively exploring bio-fuels and other options to reduce emissions. We can now say with confidence that bio-fuels made from non-food sources may well power aircraft to come, reducing carbon emissions and airlines' reliance on petroleum," commented Marion C Blakey, president and CEO Aerospace Industries Association, in his speech at the Geneva summit.

De-congesting the skies

One major hurdle in the race for controlling climate change is aircraft movement. Air traffic nowadays has started to take the shape of traffic on our roads. Taking IGI airport in New Delhi as an example, the volume of air traffic increased while available space remained stagnant (this problem will linger on till the new under-construction runway is completed). Such situations have led to chronic congestion both in mid air and on the tarmac down below; in such conditions, controlling energy costs and emissions become near impossible.

In his presentation at the CEO Challenge, Andrew Herdman said, "Airlines and airports can partner to improve efficiency of aircraft movement." To better the infrastructure of airports, the air routes and airport terminals will have to be optimised for maximum efficiency. The new RGI airport built by GMR at Shamshabad in Hyderabad is a striking exemplar of a clean and efficient airport infrastructure; the New Delhi IGI airport is in the process of being revamped by the same company.

There is a great deal of dependence on the government for R&D in the areas of infrastructure and planning; travel destinations, airline companies and airports can work together and try to persuade the government to improve the condition of the infrastructure, and have improved air traffic management (ATM). "Governments must cooperate to support and fund basic research so that the private sector can do its job, competing to apply that research effectively," said Bisignani. Airline giants Boeing and Airbus have already taken the initiative to work together to help the aviation industry; modernising air traffic management and competing for technological and environmental advancements, are parts of their method to help keep the planet green.

Envisioning the future

According to IATA, the airline industry has come a long way, improving on its statistics and working towards a greener future. The aircraft designed today, fly three times the distance on the same amount of fuel as compared to aircraft from forty years ago. The latest aircraft to take to the skies - the Airbus A380 and the Boeing 787 - use less than three litres of fuel per 100 passengers per kilometre.

This fuel consumption is actually comparable to a small family car, albeit the speed of travel is more than six times. By the year 2020, technological advancements are expected to improve fuel efficiency by another 50 per cent, reductions in noise levels are expected to go up to 50 per cent, and local air quality is expected to improve by reducing nitrogen oxide emissions by 80 per cent. To conclude, some positive words from IATA CEO, Bisignani, "Environmental responsibility must become a core promise alongside safety and security to the 2.2 billion passengers that fly every year."