ANALYSIS: To cut carbon, pack in the pax

Airlines that have been the most vocal about the positive steps they have taken to reduce their carbon footprints were ranked among the least fuel-efficient transatlantic carriers in a recent study carried out by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT).

In a list of 20 airlines, the ICCT put British Airways at the bottom of the pile, behind Lufthansa and SAS, for transatlantic fuel efficiency in 2014.

All three carriers have either carried out well-publicised biofuel flights, backed the development of alternative aviation fuels or publicly talked up their green credentials in the past. The exception to this was KLM – an airline which places a heavy emphasis on its sustainability policy and was among the first to conduct biofuel-powered flights. The Dutch carrier was ranked joint-fourth, alongside Air Canada, Aeroflot, Turkish Airlines and Air France.

Top of the ICCT’s list was Oslo-based Norwegian Air Shuttle, which operates low-cost transatlantic flights using a fleet of Boeing 787-8s.

According to the study, Norwegian achieved an average of 40 passenger kilometres per litre of fuel on its transatlantic services last year, versus BA’s average of 27 passenger kilometres per litre. In other words, says the ICCT, the three least-efficient airlines (Lufthansa, SAS and BA) were collectively responsible for one-fifth of transatlantic available seat kilometres but burned 44-51% more fuel per passenger kilometre than the most efficient carrier in 2014.

“The heavy use of older, less efficient, large twin-aisle aircraft – namely the Airbus A340 and especially the Boeing 747-400 – with extensive premium seating, was common across these carriers,” says the ICCT in its report.

To reach its conclusions, the ICCT took information from an international flight schedule database and operational data reported to the US Department of Transportation, which it programmed into Piano 5 – an aircraft performance and emissions tool widely used for policy and environmental analysis purposes – to model airline fuel burn.

The biggest factors affecting fuel efficiency were the types of aircraft deployed on transatlantic routes and the seating configurations on board. Airlines operating new-generation aircraft, such as the 787, and configuring them with fewer premium-class seats, ranked considerably higher than carriers using less efficient aircraft, such as the Boeing 747, and filling them with a large proportion of space-hungry first- and business-class seats.

“Among the operational variables assessed, seating configuration – that is the ratio of premium to total seating and the number of seats per square metre of fuselage floor area – appears to have the strongest impact on fuel efficiency,” says the report. “On the former metric, Iberia (ranked 11^th) and Icelandair (9^th) had the fewest business- and first-class seats, while British Airways (20^th), Swiss (15^th) and Lufthansa (18^th) had the highest share of premium seats.”

According to the ICCT, first- and business-class seats accounted for just 14% of available seat kilometres flown on transatlantic routes in 2014, but were responsible for approximately one-third of the total carbon emissions in that segment.

Little wonder then that Norwegian, a relatively young carrier operating a new fleet and marketing itself primarily to the price-conscious economy-class passenger, fared much better in the rankings than BA, a long-established network carrier that derives much of its revenue from high-yielding first- and business-class passengers.

The report’s co-author, ICCT programme director for aviation Dan Rutherford, concedes that “the business models of those airlines are quite different”, and that “it would be unrealistic to suggest that BA could achieve Norwegian’s fuel efficiency, given its current emphasis on premium seating on North Atlantic routes”. However he suggests that older aircraft types are being phased out less quickly than they might have been when fuel prices were at much higher levels.

“I do have the sense that BA in particular has adopted a strategy of deploying older, less fuel-efficient 747-400 aircraft with a lot of premium seating preferentially on high-yield routes. This practice may end naturally if fuel prices return to 2013 levels,” says Rutherford. “As we noted in our report, this practice does leave airlines like BA vulnerable to fuel-price increases and potential future policies to price aviation carbon.”

The ICCT says in its report that BA was fuel-inefficient “due to heavy use of the four-engine[d] 747-400 aircraft (48% of its ASKs), its 15-year-old fleet, and industry-leading use of premium seating (24% of seats, almost double the industry average)”. It adds: “British Airways’ focus on business class is not limited to the 747, however, as indicated by its one-class, 32-business seat [Airbus] A318 flights from London City Airport and Shannon Airport (Ireland) to New York JFK.”

BA has taken exception to the report for only examining a one-year snapshot, based on a single specific route, and not taking into account the large number of next-generation aircraft that many of the legacy carriers have on order.

“Our carbon emissions performance continues to improve with the introduction of new, more fuel-efficient aircraft. By the end of 2016 we will have 12 [Airbus] A380s and 24 787s, with a further 18 to come. In 2018 we will start taking delivery of 18 [Airbus] A350s. We have also developed innovative operational procedures which have been adopted by other carriers to increase fuel efficiency,” says the London Heathrow-based airline.

“British Airways has improved its carbon efficiency by 10% between 2005 and 2014 (from 110.8g of CO² [carbon dioxide] per passenger kilometre in 2005 to 100.1g of CO² per passenger kilometre in 2014). We are on track to deliver our target of 83g of CO² per passenger kilometre, which means a 25% improvement by 2025.”

The carrier goes on to say that “a better approach to the research would have been to look at airlines’ global operations, rather than segment one region”.

On the issue of its high proportion of premium seating on transatlantic routes, BA responds that it is “one of the world’s leading global premium airlines and, as such, there is a strong demand for our business- and first-class services over the Atlantic, which we meet by providing our customers with a range of seating options”. However, the airline adds: “We keep this under review depending on customer demand.”

And it is customer demand that will ultimately determine the amount of space airlines dedicate to premium-class seating in the future. Whether passengers will start opting to fly in economy in order to reduce their carbon footprint remains to be seen, but it seems unlikely.

“My gut feeling is that, at least initially, a strong majority of travellers would continue to choose flights on the basis of cost, scheduling, loyalty programmes, et cetera. This might change over time, however,” says Rutherford. To plant this seed in passengers’ minds, the ICCT would like to see more information on aviation emissions being made available to airline passengers.

“Currently, public information at the route or flight level is limited, so it’s hard to say how consumer behaviour might be impacted with better information,” says Rutherford. “Ideally, we’d like to see carbon footprint data being provided to the consumer at the point of ticket purchase by airlines, agents and search engines.”

Indeed, the ICCT report states that “improved data reporting would help travellers concerned about their carbon footprint make more informed purchasing decisions and help policymakers craft policies to reduce the environmental impact of flying”.

Ironically, it is the business model of the aggressively fast-growing budget airlines – to cram as many passengers as possible into newer, more fuel-efficient aircraft – that is proving to be the most environmentally friendly on a fuel-burned-per-passenger-kilometre basis. Some sustainability experts believe this model should become more widespread in the future to reduce overall airline emissions but, again, any change would be largely dependent on customer demand.

“Airline business models may have to change in the future to maximise load factors,” says Professor Callum Thomas, chair of sustainable aviation at Manchester Metropolitan University’s Centre for Aviation, Transport and the Environment (CATE). But the question, adds Thomas, is: “Can the industry lead the customer, or should it wait for the customer to demand a less carbon-intensive product?”

While load factor alone “is not a major determinant of overall airline fuel efficiency”, the ICCT points out in its report that the airline with the highest load factor (KLM at 88%) ranks fourth in fuel efficiency, whereas the carrier with the lowest loads (US Airways at 74%) ranks 15^th.

In its report, the ICCT says that the large gap in fuel efficiency between the top and bottom ranking airlines suggests “there is a large and underestimated potential for in-sector CO² emission reduction”. This “highlights the role for additional policies to limit aviation emissions, notably the CO² standard being developed by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO)”.

ICAO’s Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection (CAEP) has been developing a global CO² standard for commercial aircraft for several years. The introduction of this standard moved a step closer in July 2012 when the CAEP agreed on a CO² metric system to underpin the standard.

The system will take into account an aircraft’s size, weight and cruise point fuel-burn performance, the intention being to reward advances in aircraft technologies that contribute to CO² reductions and to differentiate between aircraft with different generations of these technologies. The idea behind the standard is that it will encourage the integration of fuel-efficient technologies into aircraft design and development, says ICAO.

“Given the recent move toward re-engining aircraft – which deploy advanced engines but not necessarily technologies to improve aerodynamics and to reduce aircraft weight – we believe that efficiency standards for aircraft will play a key role,” says Rutherford. ICAO is expected to propose its standard in early 2016, but Rutherford believes that “the level of ambition is in doubt”.

The ICCT sets out in its report what it would like to see from the standard: “A robust CO² standard should help accelerate technology development and adoption by manufacturers and airlines. In particular, a CO² standard covering all new aircraft, not just new designs, will avoid perverse incentives against the introduction of new types, and help ensure that technologies developed for advanced aircraft types like the 787-8 are deployed more widely across manufacturers’ full product lines.”

While the ICCT’s transatlantic report provides a snapshot in time for 2014 only, Rutherford points out that the organisation has analysed five years' worth of efficiency data for the US domestic market, highlighting the degree to which the efficiency of carriers changes over time.

“Time series data suggests that it is possible for legacy carriers to improve their fuel efficiency over time, although with larger fleets more inertia is built into the system, so to speak,” says Rutherford. The ICCT’s analysis of US domestic carriers demonstrated that the fuel-efficiency gap between the USA’s most and least efficient narrowed slightly to 25% in 2014, from 27% in 2013.

It conducted another study last year on the anticipated impacts of fleet renewal plans for US airlines. However, Rutherford points out that “it will be interesting to see if airlines implement these plans as is, or if they slow down their fleet-renewal plans given current low oil prices”.

Source: FlightGlobal.com