It’s Time Video Killed Business Class Travel

The IATA/ICAO schematic illustrates the point that, in the absence of any efforts to reduce emissions, the industry’s climate footprint would continue to increase in line with the industry’s desired increase in passenger numbers. The fleet renewal will afford some level of savings, as will new engines and other efficiency gains based on technology innovation.

However IATA itself notes that in the airline industry a “minimum of 10 years is required to move new technology from conception to implementation.” Therefore, such efforts have a long lead time and, even so, such innovation is clearly still not enough on its own to even approach a “carbon-neutral” state. The industry also wants increasing passenger numbers to provide the funds required for the fleet and infrastructure investment. The industry therefore relies upon the future availability of suitable “low-carbon fuels” in order to meet its reduction targets.

Low carbon pie in the sky

The problem is that such fuels remain a pipedream. IATA’s own strategy paper on the subject reflects that “the aviation industry has to date no commercially viable alternative energy source to jet kerosene,” and notes that “(such) fuels will not be in widespread commercial use in the next several years” due to the effort required to develop and bring low-carbon fuels to market that also meet the other stringent performance and safety requirements of the aviation industry. Obviously the reliance on the availability of low-carbon alternatives to jet kerosene as the keystone to the achievement of the industry’s uniquely inspirational plan is a big ask, especially given the push to achieve a return to an emissions target established on a 2005 baseline by 2020.

A path reliant on low-carbon fuels is also not without risks, both to the airline industry as well as to the environment. Andy Atkins, Director of Friends of the Earth, describes the current biofuels policy direction “as a failure,” and the group finds that overall emissions from biofuels could be worse than those from the fossil fuels they replace.

Video conferencing is the real answer

So what does all that mean to the reference Giovanni Bisignani made to video conferencing? In his speech, Bisignani pointed to unparalleled achievements so far in cutting emissions – claiming 6.5 percent cuts in 2009 over 2008 numbers. However, only 1.8 percent of the overall reductions can be attributed to the execution of IATA’s strategy, with the balance actually resulting from the reduction in passenger numbers due to the economic conditions of the previous 12 months.

Reducing passenger numbers is therefore more than two-and-a-half times more effective in reducing emissions than the airline industry’s own strategy, one that it describes as being “a role model for others to follow.” Keeping in mind that low carbon fuels are for the “future,” then what that really means is that reducing flying is two-and-a-half times more effective than everything that can be delivered by fleet renewal and operational efficiency.