It is hard to imagine the business world without aviation. Every day, salesmen and CEOs alike use planes in order to explore international corporate opportunities. Aviation provides companies with greater mobility, accelerated transactions, as well as increases in competitiveness and productivity. We have become so accustomed to flying that we often forget to think about the environmental impact of our travels. According to the David Suzuki Foundation, the aviation industry accounts for four to nine percent of the total climate change impact of human activity. Although this number may seem inconsequential, aviation is such a dominant and growing industry that this small percentage actually has a big impact. According to a report published for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ground-based emissions are only half as impactful as aviation emissions. This means that, although we travel by car, train, and even bus more frequently than we fly, the flights we do take are twice as detrimental to the environment. Even those of us who rarely fly still depend on aviation, especially for shipping purposes. Due to the detrimental impact of airplane fuels, air travel is becoming more tedious and expensive for business travelers. For the sake of our pockets, ourselves, and the environment, we cannot ignore the detrimental repercussions of aviation.
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In order for us to fully understand how our business travels will be affected, we must first recognize the true source of the problem: the detrimental impact of emissions on climate change. Only once we understand the complications behind cutting fuel emissions can we understand its effect on travel.
Assessing the Environmental Impact: From Fuel Burn to Contrails
One of the reasons research into the environmental impact of aviation is limited is because calculating aviation emissions is a complicated process. While other modes of transportation can be calculated on linear scales, simply dependent on the distance travelled, the rate at which an airplane burns fuel depends on its stage in the flight. In addition, the altitude of the aircraft and the mixture of emissions–including carbon dioxide, nitric oxide, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, and trace compounds–creates quite an involved calculation process. Even scientists disagree about the size of the environmental footprint aviation leaves behind.
Fuel Burn: The Complications of Calculating Emissions
According to the International Air Transport Association, fuel is the biggest expense for flights, making up thirty-three percent of operating costs. In order to figure out the carbon emissions from an airplane, one must calculate the rate of fuel burn at various stages in the flight. Airplanes use more fuel during takeoff and descent than at cruising altitude. Therefore, the fuel burn for the landing and takeoff cycle (LTO) must be calculated separately than the cruising emissions. As Thomas Schueneman comments, this process
is “certainly a more complex task than sticking the gas nozzle in your car and driving until the needle gets near ‘E’.” These calculations must be done before every flight; this complicated process–and the varying results (depending on the aircraft and other factors such as weather)– makes it difficult to know exactly how detrimental airplanes are to the environment.
What Airlines Want Us to Believe
For obvious reasons, airlines prefer to focus on the fact that global aviation accounts for just two or three percent of human-produced carbon dioxide emissions. Unfortunately, the truth is that aviation is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for thirteen percent of emissions produced through transportation. The upstanding image airlines attempt to project can be deceiving; many passengers may not even think about how airplanes harm the environment. Regardless of the light in which airlines portray their environmental footprint, research cannot be ignored; something must be done.
Aircraft Emissions: What Causes the Most Harm?
According to the Carbon Offset Research and Education Initiative (CORE), there are four main ways aviation emissions affect the climate. Direct emission of greenhouse gases has the largest effect. Most experts agree that the direct emission of greenhouse gases comes from CO2 (70%) and H2O (30%) (PDF; 170KB). The remaining traces come from non-greenhouse gases such as nitrogen oxides (NOx), emission of aerosols, and contrails. Most of these emissions occur at high altitudes. According to Schueneman, “for NOx and H2O emissions, climate impact is localized and amplified at high altitude. Nitrogen oxides chemically react with light to form ozone (O3).” Due to the high intensity of light in the upper atmosphere, there is more ozone from NOx emissions at this height.
The Controversy Behind Contrails: Helpful or Harmful?
Contrails are the long trails of exhaust that you may have seen in the sky behind airplanes. Scientists have found that contrails are the most harmful at night because they trap infrared radiation from Earth. In the daytime, however, contrails can actually reflect sunlight away from Earth. Even so, according to CORE, “overall, contrails caused by air-travel emissions are considered to have a net warming effect.”
Controversy has been caused by the contrails conspiracy; some people think contrails are 
being used to “manipulate the CO2 figures,” while others think “the contrails themselves are being used to re-engineer the atmosphere, using unspecified chemicals to change the weather.” The author George Monibiot expresses his anger that “the most vocal people protesting against aviation emissions have no interest in their contribution to global warming.” Most of the people denouncing sky pollution believe that science is part of the problem. Monibiot believes that this conspiracy “lets aviation off the hook;” no one has to pay attention to the real issue at hand.
Negotiation Issues: International Flights and Halts in Progress
Despite scientific proof, aviation has been ignored during international negotiations. Disappointment came in 2011 with the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme Prohibition Act of 2011, which forbade United States airlines from participating in the European Union Emissions Trading System. Unfortunately, because international flights do not fall under just one country’s jurisdiction, conflict can be unavoidable. These negotiations can be tricky; more attention is often paid to the debates, rather than the environmental impact of decisions.
The 2015 Paris Climate Summit: Failures to Address Aviation’s Environmental Impact
In 2015, the governments of more than 190 nations met in Paris to address climate change issues. This meeting was so important because, according to theguardian.com, current agreements on greenhouse gas emissions will expire in 2020. Scientists have warned us that we will soon “pass the threshold beyond which global warming becomes catastrophic and irreversible.” Yet, somehow, aviation was not addressed during this meeting! The success of meetings such as this is debatable; as Flassbeck Economics comments, “markets are characterised by power relations, just as any other social institution, and they fail to reckon with the preferences of fictional actors (future generations).” Luckily, there are those who see past this and realize that something must change.
Europe’s Attempt to Reduce Aviation Emissions
Although the impact that aviation has on the climate is often a neglected topic, Europe has spent the last few decades trying to decrease greenhouse gas emissions. According to Flassbeck Economics, the European Union Emissions Trading System (ETS) “set an overall legal limit on CO2 emissions of over 11,000 power stations and factories within 30 countries and accounts for almost half of the EU’s CO2 
emissions.” The ETS was supposed to make pollution more expensive and emissions more manageable without government intervention. Unfortunately, this system has not worked; “the ETS miserably failed to deliver a consistently rising carbon price necessary for long-term, low-carbon investment.”
The International Air Transport Association’s Plans for the Future of Aviation
In an interview with Kalliopi Lazari, the Assistant Manager of Corporate Communications at the International Air Transport Association, our team was told that it is the IATA’s goal “to ensure proportionate and coherent environmental policies are implemented by governments around the world to support the sector’s sustainability and allow environmental improvements to be achieved in a cost-effective manner.” In 2009, IATA proposed to make these changes by setting clear goals for the future. They plan on improving fuel efficiency by 1.5% per year from 2009 to 2020, placing a cap on the net aviation CO2 to create carbon-neutral growth, and reducing the net aviation CO2 emissions by 50% by 2050. Only time will tell if these radical improvements will come to fruition.
Attempts for Progress: Fuel and Design Alterations
Progress can be difficult when there are still debates lingering about the exact damage of greenhouse gases and what price correlates to this damage. Flassbeck Economics comments that “prices cannot be determined by demand and supply because pollution is not an ordinary commodity.” Even so, there are companies that are pushing forward and attempting to adapt to the changing times.
Ability to Adapt
According to Wired, airplanes stay in service for two to three decades. This means that airlines must stay up-to-date on the latest technological advancements, as well as making sure they cut fuel consumption. This is why you may notice airlines like Boeing and Airbus offering performance improvement packages. These airlines are “adding aerodynamic devices to wingtips (Boeing calls them winglets, Airbus calls them sharklets), which can cut fuel use by up to 5 percent on single-aisle jets.”
Qatar Airlines (teaming with Boeing) states that their new performance improvement package focuses on “providing superior product to its customers.” With these improvements, airlines can now open up new routes, fly more efficiently, and “improve payload capacity and range.” So, if you’re flying internationally for business, you may 
want to try out Boeing and Qatar Airlines. According to boeing.com, they offer “the industry’s largest portfolio of services including aftermarket parts, subscription-based maintenance programs, engineering support, crew training, route planning, digital crew scheduling, advanced data analytics and software to enhance airlines and leasing company operations.” The more efficient air travel becomes, the more carbon emissions will be reduced; the less airlines waste, the more fuel (and therefore money) they can save. This means that business travelers flying with these improved airlines will save both money and time.
The Most Fuel-Efficient Airplanes
Although these little changes help, they do not do enough. So, is there an airline that is extremely fuel-efficient? Unfortunately, finding the best airplane is a lot more complicated than it seems. There is no perfect plane because “we always must trade one attribute for another;” fuel is not the only driving factor. Flyingmag.com’s writer J. Mac McClellan believes that what we really want is “not the most fuel-efficient airplane possible, but the most thrifty one that suits our mission.” Temperature, weight, and wing size are just a few of the variables we must consider before we determine what company has the “best” airplane in terms of environmental impact. In a ranking done by the International Council on Clean Transportation, there is a “compounding effect, where the airlines with the most efficient planes also had the most efficient operational practices.” Airlines must create more efficient systems before they can become more fuel-efficient. Unfortunately, this just makes things more complicated for consumers. So, if you have to travel for business, try out these more fuel-efficient airlines:
- Boeing 737 MAX and 787 Dreamliner
- The private plane, Synergy Prime
- Airbus’ eco-efficient planes
- Norwegian Air: for transatlantic flights, this airline was found to be 51 percent more efficient than British Airways (which came in LAST in the ICCT ranking.) Choose Norwegian Air, Aer Lingus, and Airberlin over SAS and Lufthansa!
Check out the full ranking here and the US ranking here.
How Climate Change Affects Business Travelers: Changes You’ll Notice
With fuel costs making up one-third of aviation expenses, airlines are desperately trying to reduce fuel consumption. This is why we often have to sit in
thin, light seats; this provides more room, so that airlines can squeeze more people aboard. Among other changes, airlines are putting less ice in passengers’ drinks, making magazines smaller, removing life vests from flights, and even charging passengers by weight! For business travelers, some of these changes may be bad news. With a long trip ahead–or behind– you, you may not want to have to cram into a smaller seat or worry about telling the airline how much you weigh.
Air Canada’s Jazz Aircrafts Remove Life Vests
For those who are scared of flying to begin with, you may not be happy that Air Canada has removed their life vests and replaced them with inflatable cushions. Although this has only been done for planes that remain within fifty miles from shore– and Air Canada assures us that it’s safe–you may still be uneasy.
Samoa Air: Pay as You Weigh
Many customers are complaining about Samoa Air’s Pay as You Weigh program. Samoa Air’s chief, Chris Langton, explains that “what makes airplanes work is weight. We are not selling seats, we are selling weight.” The airline’s website explains their calculation of cost as simply your weight plus your baggage. For heavier customers, Langton says that “it works both ways. People who pay more deserve more.” This means that heavier customers will have more comfortable seats and space around them. For taller customers, sick of not having enough leg room, Samoa Air will even try to give you space to stretch out.
Though some are criticizing this as a “fat tax,” others, like Dr. Bhatta, are pleased. In his paper, Norwegian Economist Dr. Bharat P. Bhatta noted a “reduction of 1 kilo weight of a plane will result in fuel savings worth US $3,000 a year and a reduction of CO2 emissions by the same token.” Dr. Bhatta believes this is an efficient and fair plan that will help to stabilize the environment. Pay as You Weigh could even help draw attention to the growing obesity problem in the United States!
More Improvements: Why Travelers Need to Help
Still, movements such as those initiated by Air Canada and Samoa Air are not enough. As Wired’s Alex Davies states, “these changes are the equivalent of snipping off loose threads when the entire sweater needs to go. Or at least the sleeves.” Davies states that, in order to see any dramatic changes, we must completely revise the way we both power and design planes. There is an “exhausting battle” to fight against “a powerful industry and unresponsive governments.” At the end of the day, if we want to reduce our impact, we must fly less; few people are prepared to do this. Many of us need to travel for work; how can we help the environment if we also need to fly? This question, among many others, will be explored in part two of this series.
