British Airways and Lufthansa top the chart for the least fuel efficient carriers, contributing the most to carbon pollution from aviation.
Air travel has quite a huge carbon footprint. Although many studies suggested that aviation tax for carbon emissions should be made obligatory if we are to reduce pollution, little is done about it. Some technological advances are noted, including the use of biofuel in the fuel mix to reduce emissions, but the scale of the attempts is far from significant.
A few days ago, the International Council for Clean Transportation (ICCT) released a study, pointing fingers at the most polluting, least fuel efficient airline companies. Top three of the biggest offenders includes British Airways, Lufthansa and the Scandinavian airline SAS.
The cleanest of them all is the Norwegian Air Shuttle, one of the world’s largest low-cost airlines, which apparently burns the incredible 51% less fuel than British Airways per passenger, or average of 40km per passenger per liter of fuel. The runner up is the German Air Berlin with an average fuel efficiency of 35 passenger kilometers per little.
According to the study, one of the main reasons behind this huge variation in fuel efficiency is the seating configuration. Another factor is the number of business class seats, which account for about one third of all carbon emissions, yet make up only 14% of all seats.
However, the fuel burning efficiency of the aircraft showed to have the highest influence. Naturally, the newer the plane, the more efficient it is, and therefore the companies that invested in advanced technology, scored better than the rest. ICCT study concludes that technology plays the most significant role in reducing carbon emissions in the aviation transport sector.
A small reminder here, the US-based ICCT are the people, who exposed Volkswagen in the recent scandal over emissions cheats.
Image (c) Norwegian
Talking about creating GHGs. I suspect jet engines are gross pollution machines that burn fossil fuels about as high in the atmosphere as you can go. How about developing aircraft that burn hydrogen fuel directly instead of fossil fuel; or, how about a hydrogen fuel cell that creates electricity to run electric motor driven ducted fans and/or propellers.