Green Your Air Travel

Reduce Your Impact when you Fly

It’s often said that a return (round trip) flight across America or a trans-Atlantic flight can cause as much carbon footprint as a year’s worth of average driving.

Planes are not green. They burn a lot of fuel and therefore emit a great deal of CO2 per passenger. And there are other high-altitude impacts such as vapour trails and ozone production which may cause as much warming as the CO2 itself.

We know that flying is bad for the environment.

Is there a way to reduce your impact when you fly?

Question it

For green living, you’ll always want to evaluate if your journey is truly necessary, and then decide if flying to your destination is the best method.

If you decide your journey is necessary, then look at your options.

Choices?

Sometimes you don’t have much choice – travelling between Europe and the USA for example, is really a choice between a plane or a ship, and if time is short, then flying may be the only answer.

But destinations within the US or within Europe for example, may offer reasonable alternatives – trains or car sharing for example. (I love trains).

And when you consider waiting time, security checks and getting to and from airports, other methods may just be easier and more efficient!

As a general rule, trains are much more green than planes.

Often, they’re more comfortable too!

(See the photo below of afternoon tea on a British train – they’re not all like that, but it’s good know some are).

But if you do need to fly, there are a couple of things you can do to reduce your impact.

1. Choose an efficient airline
2. Plant trees (or pay for them to be planted) to help to reduce your carbon emissions – visit Plant A Tree USA or Trees For Life in the UK.

The Most Efficient Airlines in America

A new report by the International Council for Clean Transportation (ICCT) shows which US airlines use fuel most efficiently.

Why should you care about their efficiency?

The airlines’ single biggest cost is jet fuel — more than salaries, more than health care (and definitely more than plane food!), so a failure to use fuel efficiently usually means that the airline isn’t operating as profitably as it should be. And using more fuel than is necessary is definitely not green and eco friendly.

As you can see from this ICCT graph, Alaska Airlines use fuel more efficiently than other US airlines.

(Note: there is no comparison to other countries).

American Airlines, on the other hand, are less efficient with their fuel.

Of course, fuel efficiency isn’t the only way to assess an airline’s environmental performance, but it is an important part because aviation fuel is made from fossil fuels.

Plus, some of the ways to improve efficiency are relatively simple:

• installing winglets
• towing jets on the ground
• flying at more efficient speeds

Another Consideration….

The political views of airlines are also important. For example, United Airlines has lobbied against action to cap pollution, and even filed lawsuits to block action according to the Huffington Post.

Quick Summary

So, if you’re thinking about flying:

1. Always evaluate if it’s the best method
2. Choose your airline with care

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