This is your Captain. Buckle your seatbelts, we’re going down.
It is reported that Willie Walsh will, on behalf of the IATA will promise to cut the airline industry’s emissions by 50% over 2005 levels, by 2050. It is further reported that the airline industry is taking such a pledge in order to sidestep what they expect to happen to them otherwise. Which is raucous protest by the rallied (and ever swelling masses) of concerned citizens, and censure from the soon-to-be-assembled set of speakers due in to Copenhagen in 76 days time. In effect, Willie has realised that the price the airlines must eventually pay to be allowed to continue trading is on the same sliding scale as that used to calculate passenger tickets. Leave it until later before you commit on the decision, and for the same outcome you just get charged more and with less choice.
Have the airlines finally got on board with the programme?
The choice of 2005 as the baseline year is the first red flag that all might not be “final and best effort” down at the IATA HQ. 2005 was one of the peak year for airline emissions this decade - prior to the recession-led slump in airline travel that has resulted in a fairly dramatic drop in emissions from the sector during the 2008-2009 period, and interestingly also before the run up to $147 p/bl oil prices. During the recession airlines have parked unneeded aircraft left and right, mothballing planes that nobody could afford to fly on any more. They have therefore chosen for themselves a baseline year that allows them plenty of scope for growth in airline movements and passenger numbers compared to now.
The airlines have also calculated that their efforts to cut emissions will result in higher costs being passed onto travellers. So it should - if the idea is to dissuade passengers from flying and encourage them to consider alternative means of transport, for example a national high speed rail system. However early reports indicate that the IATA estimates that the incremental cost will be around the £40 to £50 mark for a long haul trip. Interestingly this is the same price range for a charge applied to a would-be traveller by one of the flight-offset companies. I’ve written before here that offsetting doesn’t really make a lot of difference, and also that a £40-£50 charge on top of the cost of a long haul flight isn’t likely to make that much difference at all to a potential traveller’s decision as to whether to fly or not. For short-haul flights, the ones that are actually more likely to be unnecessary (you can catch a train from London to Paris but you can’t from London to Sydney) the incremental cost is likely to under £10, possibly under £5. Certainly not enough incremental cost to have anyone caring about whether they fly to Majorca on holiday or Paris for a meeting. After all, Ryan Air and the like charge that much just to allow you to breath inside the aircraft.
It will also be significant what percentage of the industry’s planned cuts come from carbon offsets, from reduced capacity, from fleet efficiencies, or from biofuels. The latter is particularly worrying - powering all the world’s aircraft with biofuels will use so much of the world’s arable land we won’t even have enough left spare to grow the peanuts to give to all the passengers (Oh…I forgot you don’t get free peanuts anymore anyway).
What would be nice is if the industry recognised that it is not just in the flight business, it is in the communications business. During the recession business travellers stayed out of the skies in sufficient numbers that the IATA Chairman stated recently that “teleconferencing has become a competitor to business travel via flying”. The airline industry needs to embrace this trend, not continue to fight against it. Having fronted Willie Walsh up to speak on their behalf, they perhaps now might consider the merits of joining forces with the growing teleconferencing industry to examine how communications hubs can best be developed to serve the business executive. Heathrow runway and passenger terminal expansion plans can be torn up now and they can start immediately on something like this instead.
Embracing “game changers” like teleconferencing might also help the airlines deal with the ever rising cost of petroleum based feedstocks for airline fuel. Willie Walsh himself is not stranger to the impact of high oil prices on airline viability and profitability, with BA shedding pounds and staff as oil climbed to $147 p/bl during 2008. Oil prices are not coming down to sub-$70 in the longer term. That too will represent a serious challenge to long term airline viability.
The IATA’s announcement is a welcome one. It ought not however to be seen as the airline industry rolling over sweetly and wagging its tail in a happy-go-lucky manner as climate campaigners coo and rub its stomach. The devil is in the detail regarding how the industry will achieve its promised cuts.
Tags: Climate change, Energy supply, Telepresence, Travel