Carbon Emissions

[Ex-Ascot]

Apologies if this is on another thread but I can't find it. What is the solution? Do we fly one A380 with 853 pax on board or three B787s with 290 on board?

Do we just have cattle class to move people around the world? In this case more weight more fuel. They say that folk flying business or first are contributing more to the carbon emissions. I disagree. We are reducing the weight of the aircraft and thus less fuel burn.

As they say in tutorials: Discuss. Greta Thunberg may not reply.

[Pontius Navigator]

Reduce the fuel burn to SFC/Pax. For the Business/Cattle mix work out average mixes

[Rwy in Sight]

Regarding more passenger per aircraft some US authority explained (in a publication about deregulation) that additional pax cost little to transport in terms of fuel consumption and IIRC a comment from the low cost sector in Europe that they have lower emissions per passenger.
I am not sure they made sense and I want to see if I can find the US document.

[Capetonian]

I am not in favour of going all economy but it is in fact a more ecofriendly solution simply because you squeeze more sweaty bods into the same space.
In other words 500 pax all in Y will burn roughly the same amount of fuel as Y300 W50 C40 F10.
The weight of the heavier seats used for F and C also has to be factored in.

[llondel]

It's an amortisation exercise. To fly the aircraft empty uses a certain amount of fuel. Add one passenger and he has a huge carbon footprint if it's all attributed to him. Add a second passenger and the per-person footprint drops to some tiny amount over half. Each additional passenger reduces the per-person footprint, although because it's a 1/x curve it starts levelling off and if the aircraft was large enough (which an A380 might be), the extra fuel required for a passenger will eventually equal the reduction due to sharing the up-front cost.

[Pontius Navigator]

The weight of the heavier seats used for F and C also has to be factored in.

but offset by the 100 Y not used, also 100 pax fewer.

I would guess that all economy would weigh more than the mix.

[ian16th]

The weight of the heavier seats used for F and C also has to be factored in.

but offset by the 100 Y not used, also 100 pax fewer. + their luggage.

I would guess that all economy would weigh more than the mix.

[bob2s]

Remember to add in the 20 odd kilo that the average pax considers to be hand luggage for the o/head locker.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Working out the entire life cycle carbon cost is the only way to do it, but in most cases nobody does it because it's hard.
Examples of other carbon costs to consider.
The construction, maintenance, and disposal of each aircraft.
The crewing costs, including en route stops and travel to airport.
The accommodating of pax at intermediate stops

I would guess the best bet is flying full aircraft non-stop.
For the airborne bits, the cheapest way is probably the greenest way.
For all the other bits, there are so many subsidies it would be unwise to assume that the airlines' costs being cheapest means the overall process is green.
The hub system of Icelandair is very efficient. All the flights head into Reykjavik, which is on the great circle route anyway, just before lunch. The pax have lunch and the aircraft are serviced, then they all get on the appropriate connection and leave. I think the airport is only open for a few hours a day.

[Rwy in Sight]

The hub system of Icelandair is very efficient. All the flights head into Reykjavik, which is on the great circle route anyway, just before lunch. The pax have lunch and the aircraft are serviced, then they all get on the appropriate connection and leave. I think the airport is only open for a few hours a day.

Does this apply to Dubai as well?

[ian16th]

Didn't Icelandair buy Britannia's and offer cheap trans Atlantic fares?

[Ex-Ascot]

And, then there are the charter companies with wide bodied jets. With 400 pax on board we only had the hold half full of bags. So we filled the rest up with newspapers so the moron British tourists in Tenerife and Banjul didn't have to go without their Sunday Sport, Daily Mirror and Sun. Cape may be able to help here but I understood we made more income from this freight than the pax.

So this is another point. Stop flying newspapers. I know that many UK ones are printed abroad now. But if you do not fly freight the morons will have to pay more for their tickets to get dead drunk and throw themselves off hotel balconies. Still have to fly them back and a body costs more than a walking one. So encourage more to jump off balconies and increase airline revenue. I should have been an airline CEO.

[Capetonian]

KEF is only on the GC route for a lot of routings between Europe and North/Central America.

DXB is on some direct routings between Europe/the Americas to parts of Asia, but because they offer such cheap fares, people fly via DXB between Europe and the Americas, which to my way of thinking is insane (as indeed is setting foot in that septic shithole.)

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

So, there we have it.
The UK education system is doing its bit by turning out vast numbers of "graduates" who can't read (and thus won't buy newspapers),
..and it makes ecological sense to put people into bars in Magaluf to buy another 3 rounds for already p!ssed Brits so they fall off their balconies when they finally stagger back to the hotel.

In the Americas, ecology would dictate massively reducing the cost of beer and exotic power equipment, since the most common FLWs here are
"Hold my beer and watch this!"