IES Blog

Aviation vs Environment

Posted : December 18, 2009 by Jimmy Lee, Category: Building Regulations, recycling

I am going to step away from building this time and have a look at the pollution and environmental damage from aviation sector.

I have taken two pictures in Beijing while making a trip there, we can see that the air quality is rather poor during the daytime, the visibility in the city is low and it is not due to the moisture on that day, it is air pollution! I know there are a lot of factors that contribute to the pollution, factories, cars, planes etc. But in this article, we will just focus on aviation.

According to IATA’s Director General, Giovanni Bisignani, by 2010, Asia will be the largest single market for aviation. IATA is focused on reducing fuel burn hence reducing carbon emission, with every litre of fuel saved, reduces about 3kg of CO2 emission.

For speech of the IATA’s Director General, please visit:
http://www.iata.org/pressroom/speeches/2008-02-25-01.htm

The aircraft companies are working hard nowadays to reduce the fuel consumption of their airplanes. We now see better design and better engines, all these are to help create a cleaner environment around. But there are only certain limits that the aircraft companies can do, to solve the problems, everyone (including government body, airlines companies and passengers) should play a role as well in reducing the green house gases emission. With government body, airport management groups and airline companies working on shortening routes, improving air traffic management and spreading best practice in fuel conservation, what can we as passenger do to help?

I recently read one short article from a forum in Asia, one Asian airline has set up a trial policy on certain flight route that they will ask passengers to go to the toilet before boarding the plane in order to lose some weight. By doing this, they estimated that can save around 4.2 tonnes of CO2 emission per month. I personally welcome this approach as not only you help reduce the overall weight of the plane while it’s travelling, but it also gives you bigger and cleaner spaces in modern airport’s toilet. And not to mention the washrooms queuing time that I always see inside the plane!!

Here are some extra small tips that I picked up from an airline magazine about travelling:
1. Bring clothes that can mix and match easily, so you don’t need to bring too many clothes.
2. Only bring necessary accessories.
3. Roll clothes up for tidy packing, so you can use a smaller suitcase.
4. Bring lightweight equipments for business trip.

These are just some examples how we can help to reduce carbon footprint.

Nowadays I have also seen airlines applying strict restrictions and penalties on the weight of check in and hand carry luggage, I think a lot of these penalties are purely to cover the extra fuel that the airlines might need for heavier planes and not from the environmental point of view, but it certainly will help our future generation if we start using less fuel. So let’s start travel as light as possible or even better travel less where possible!

Tags:Building, Engineers, Environment, reduce, Welcome