While the rise of commercial aviation over the last century has opened up previously unthinkable possibilities of seeing the world and connecting places thousands of miles away, the biggest concern about the growing number of travelers comes down to sustainability.
One estimate found that the typical Boeing 737 and 747 (bachelor of arts) Aircraft used by many airlines for short-haul domestic flights burn an average of four liters of fuel for every second spent in the air, while commercial aviation worldwide emits more than 900 million metric tons of CO2.2 per year into the atmosphere and represents approximately 2% of total emissions.
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Over the last decade, there have been a growing number of conversations about how to make aviation more sustainable. One possibility that many in the industry are putting their faith in is sustainable aviation fuels: fuel made from bio-based products and reused waste material, but that still has the ability to power a plane in the same way as conventional fuel. traditional petroleum-based.
Breeze CEO on sustainable fuel: 'A very inefficient way to approach the problem'
David Neeleman, who was behind the establishment of low-cost airlines such as JetBlue (JBLU) and WestJet in Canada and now serves as CEO of Utah-based Breeze Airways. (NO) has been an outspoken critic of the SAF. At the start of the World Aviation Festival in Amsterdam on October 9, Neeleman gave a keynote presentation in which he called it a “very inefficient way of approaching the problem.”
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“SAF disrupts the food supply; it does all kinds of things and doesn't really solve the problem,” Neeleman told conference attendees. “I just think it's a complete waste of money. And I think there are ways to deal with climate change, to help, that really make economic sense, whereas on an SAF aircraft it doesn't make any economic sense.”
Neeleman's concerns boil down to the industry's current almost exclusive dependence on diesel fuels and the jobs that will be lost if such a drastic change is made in the short term. Their suggestion was to focus on cars and other methods of land transportation that are already becoming increasingly electric rather than aviation, which, due to the longer distances and large amounts of fuel required, would be much more difficult and expensive to change.
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'Not affecting the price of a ticket and laying off hundreds of thousands'
“My plan would be to look at all those industries that actually use distillates and diesel fuel,” Neeleman added. “They're much more efficient things rolling down a road, rather than flying in the air, and they help subsidize those things so we can't affect the price of a ticket and lay off hundreds of thousands of people.” in our industry, because plane tickets become too expensive.
Neeleman's solutions received criticism from International Air Transport Association CEO Willie Walsh, who used the question period to say that “focusing on something else” is not an efficient way to address climate change.
“Today it's two and a half percent,” Walsh said, referring to CO.2 emissions. “The question is: how much will it be in 2050? It won't be two and a half years.”
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