Air Transport Sustainability Research Articles

The effects of airline strategies on environmental sustainability

PurposeDeregulation of domestic markets and the liberalization of international markets have dramatically changed air transportation. One of the important results of this change is the environmental effects of air transportation. This study aims to examine the implications of air transportation on environmental sustainability in the context of airline business strategies in liberalized and globalized air transport industry.Design/methodology/approachThe paper discusses the relationship between liberalization, airline strategies and environmental sustainability of air transportation using the related literature. Then, to show some environmental impacts on the axis of the relationship discussed, emission rates for the aircraft landing and take-off phase were calculated on a global basis based on the aircraft traffic.FindingsThe discussion in the paper shows that the liberalization policies and the strategies of airlines supported by these policies, in essence, contradict the environmental sustainability of air transport. Considering the flight share projections of EUROCONTROL for different aircraft types on a global basis and the World Bank’s global flight traffic forecast for the years 2016 and 2025, it has been demonstrated that the number of aircraft departures will increase by 30%, whilst the number of aircraft emissions will increase by 41.5%.Practical implicationsAirlines are one of the main actors that will play a role in reducing the environmental impacts of air transportation. Therefore, this study is important in giving an idea to both policymakers and airline managers on how airline companies’ strategies should be shaped to realize both corporate sustainability and environmentally sustainable air transportation.Originality/valueThere are many studies in the literature regarding the environmental effects of air transport. However, there are not many studies linking environmental impacts with airline strategies that directly affect air transport demand. This study is different in that it gives environmental sustainability by associating it with its root causes.

Evaluation of Technology-Supported Distance Measuring to Ensure Safe Aircraft Boarding during COVID-19 Pandemic

With the rise of COVID-19, the sustainability of air transport is a major challenge, as there is limited space in aircraft cabins, resulting in a higher risk of virus transmission. In order to detect possible chains of infection, technology-supported apps are used for social distancing. These COVID-19 applications are based on the display of the received signal strength for distance estimation, which is strongly influenced by the spreading environment due to the signal multipath reception. Therefore, we evaluate the applicability of technology-based social distancing methods in an aircraft cabin environment using a radio propagation simulation based on a three-dimensional aircraft model. We demonstrate the susceptibility to errors of the conventional COVID-19 distance estimation, which can lead to large errors in the determination of distances and to the impracticability of traditional tracing approaches during passenger boarding/deboarding. In the context of the future connected cabin, a robust distance measurement must be implemented to ensure safe travel. Finally, our results can be transferred to similar fields of application, e.g., trains or public transport.

Análisis de la sostenibilidad energética del transporte aéreo y su impacto en el turismo

El transporte aéreo es un elemento indispensable en el desarrollo de un turismo globalizado. Las previsiones de crecimiento de ambos sectores son unánimes. En este trabajo se analiza la sostenibilidad del transporte aéreo desde una perspectiva energética y se compara el grado de criticidad de la disponibilidad de petróleo, frente a la de la amenaza del cambio climático por efecto de las emisiones de gases. Se analizan la evolución y proyecciones de los sectores de la energía, aviación y el turismo, elaborando una visión integral de las cuestiones de sostenibilidad energética y medioambiental. Se emplea una metodología mixta, triangulando el análisis de las proyecciones de entidades de la energía, el transporte aéreo y el turismo con la utilización de métodos cualitativos de observación participante y entrevistas a expertos.El estudio confirma la mayor urgencia por trabajar en la prevención de una posible crisis medioambiental frente a una de escasez energética. Dado que el paradigma energético de la propulsión de aeronaves no cambiará en el medio plazo, y que la aviación y el turismo continuarán creciendo, la relevancia de ambos como contribuidores al problema del cambio climático irá en aumento. Las mejoras en otros sectores de mayor consumo energético y generación de emisiones relativizarán la importancia del crecimiento de las emisiones globales del transporte aéreo. Los esquemas de compensación de emisiones serán necesarios para permitir al sector progresar hacia una estabilización de las mismas, advirtiendo de las dificultades y riesgos de su implementación si se convierten en un puro instrumento mercantil.

Air traffic assignment based on daily population mobility to reduce aircraft noise effects and fuel consumption

The paper first investigates the influence of daily mobility of population on evaluation of aircraft noise effects. Then, a new air traffic assignment model that considers this activity is proposed. The main objective is to reduce the number of people affected by noise via lowering as much as possible the noise exposure level Lden of individuals or groups of people who commute to the same locations during the day. It is hereby intended to reduce the noise impact upon individuals rather than to reduce the impact in particular – typically densely populated – areas. However, sending aircraft farther away from populated regions to reduce noise impact may increase fuel burn, thus affecting airline costs and sustainability. Therefore, a multi-objective optimization approach is utilized to obtain reasonable solutions that comply with overall air transport sustainability. The method aims at generating a set of solutions that provide proper balance between noise annoyance and fuel consumption. The reliability and applicability of the proposed method are validated through a real case study at Belgrade airport in Serbia. The investigation shows that there is a difference between the number of people annoyed (NPA) evaluated based on the census data and the NPA evaluated based on the mobility data. In addition, these numbers differ significantly across residential locations. The optimal results show that the proposed model can offer a considerable reduction in the NPA, and in some cases, it can gain up to 77%, while maintaining the same level of fuel consumption compared with the reference case.

The urban metabolism of airline passengers: Scaling and sustainability

Concerns about the negative externalities of air transport suggest it is important to consider the sustainability of growth in demand for air transport. However, there is little agreement on how the sustainability of demand should be evaluated. In this paper, I draw on the extensive literature on allometric scaling in biology, which examines animals’ demand for calories, to provide a novel framework for evaluating the sustainability of cities’ demand for air transport service. Viewing cities as analogous to organisms and airline passengers as analogous to life-sustaining resources, I focus on two questions. First, at what rate do cities metabolise passengers, that is, how many airline passengers does it take to fuel a city of a given size? Second, does this metabolic rate differ for business and leisure passengers, which represent different kinds of urban resources? Using data on airline passenger movement between 103 US metropolitan areas in each year from 1993 through 2011, I find that cities demand airline passengers in proportion to their population size, but when viewed separately, demand for business passengers as a function of city size is much lower than for leisure passengers. Moreover, I find that these patterns have remained relatively stable over the last two decades. The findings suggest that considering passenger type is important in evaluating the sustainability of air transport and the capacity of the air transport system to support cities’ continued growth.

Recent trends in air transport sustainibility

The target of this paper is to analyse the main elements of Air Transport sustainability, studying their evolution during the last years and establishing the future prevalent trends, which might be modified by the application of the adequate policies. Air Transport sustainability is considered as integrated by five basic characteristics: physical accessibility, economic affordability, safety, security and environmental impact. Each one of them has its own influence on the development of this transportation mode and all of them are required in order to achieve a sustainable development. After defining the structural elements of the five characteristics and the corresponding quantitative indicators, the paper studies the recent evolution of such indicators and extrapolates the most likely future trends, having taken into account the most relevant limitations presently existent or potentially appearing in the near future. The most important policies being presently studied (future aircraft designs, infrastructure developments, potential safety and security new rules and tentative environmental action programs) are evaluated, considering the potential repercussions on sustainability progress. Some combinations of them are suggested as the most efficient alternatives for preserving the sustainable development of XXI century air transport. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/CIT2016.2016.2150

Green air transport system: An overview of issues, strategies and challenges

Globally, the environmental sustainability of air transport is receiving greater concern nowadays owing to its critical impact on climate change. This paper provides an overview of the environmental (green) issues in relation to aviation activities, focusing on aircraft emission and noise. The influential factors of the respective green issue (including aircraft characteristics and operations) as well as the relevant mitigation strategies, ranges from the technological innovation, operational strategy, fleet planning to the policies, rules and regulations are discussed accordingly. Besides, mathematical modeling, statistical analysis and survey which emerge to be the main methodologies adopted to alleviate the green issues are also discussed in detailed. Concisely, the literatures reveal that there is no single strategy or approach that can be implemented to ease the green issue. Thus, integrated effort and commitment from the relevant parties are required to yield a greener system. By identifying the literature gaps and also the potential rooms for improvement under uncertainty, it is anticipated that this paper could provide some useful insights to the relevant parties in charting the effective strategies to attain a green air transport system.

Methods for promoting knowledge exchange and networking among young professionals in the aerospace sector—IAF׳s IPMC workshop 2013 insights

During the next decades, the aerospace community will pursue goals such as human exploration beyond the Moon, commercialization and cost reduction of space activities or sustainability of air transport and space operations, bringing relevant economic, environmental and social benefits to the society. Young professionals development is a critical success factor to enable these goals and in consequence is an area of significant interest. This paper focuses on the methods for promoting knowledge exchange and networking among Young Professionals. On the one hand, it analyzes the different activities currently used for that purpose by the organizations of the sector as well as explores the opportunities to reinforce these methods. On the other hand, it presents the results of a survey addressed to Young Professionals and aimed at identifying their needs, expectations and benefits perceived in relation with these activities. This study was conducted as part of the IAF׳s (International Astronautical Federation) IPMC (International Programme/Project Management Committee) Workshop held during the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) 2013 in Beijing, whose objective was to provide Young Professionals a forum to share experiences and to discuss ideas and needs, and which counted with more than fifty delegates representing IAF member organizations from all around the world.

Causal simulation models for facing third millennium air transport sustainability

Aeronautics and air transport is a vital sector of our society and economy. Air transport logistics is one of the key players to support efficient globalization; however, sustainable mobility is at stake, due to facts such as the interdependencies with the financial system, climate change and an increasing scarcity of resources. This paper highlights the consequences of a lack of a proper understanding of air-side and land-side, leading to an unsustainable air transport system. A system approach for knowledge sharing between air traffic controllers, handling operators, airlines and airport managers is justified by means of causal models to design a mitigation mechanism to tackle perturbations instead of increasing the latent capacity. The simulation benefits to design indicators of sustainability are also mentioned.

A liberalised South African airline industry: Measuring airline

The liberalisation of the South African airline industry through economic deregulation established competitive domestic and international markets. Sustainability of air transport, subject to these liberalisation effects, depends on efficient management information such as total-factor productivity, which necessitates comprehensive financial and operational information. Total-factor productivity in general, however, is not utilised by airlines as a key performance indicator since the measuring thereof is complex and regarded as tedious. Changes in air transport total-factor productivity can be measured in two ways. First, an index approach can be adopted that shows the proportional change in the inputs in relation to a proportional change in output. Secondly, a production function can be determined (econometric approach) that shows a change of productivity as a shift in the production curve. The research on which the article is based, exploited the theory, selection and application of an appropriate approach to determine changes of total-factor productivity of an individual airline to assist/support efficient decisionmaking by management.

A liberalised South African airline industry: Measuring airline total-factor productivity

The liberalisation of the South African airline industry through economic deregulation established competitive domestic and international markets. Sustainability of air transport, subject to these liberalisation effects, depends on efficient management information such as total-factor productivity, which necessitates comprehensive financial and operational information. Total-factor productivity in general, however, is not utilised by airlines as a key performance indicator since the measuring thereof is complex and regarded as tedious. Changes in air transport total-factor productivity can be measured in two ways. First, an index approach can be adopted that shows the proportional change in the inputs in relation to a proportional change in output. Secondly, a production function can be determined (econometric approach) that shows a change of productivity as a shift in the production curve. The research on which the article is based, exploited the theory, selection and application of an appropriate approach to determine changes of total-factor productivity of an individual airline to assist/support efficient decisionmaking by management.

Environmental and financial sustainability of air transport: Are they incompatible?

Many would consider that the current reliance on air transport is environmentally unsustainable, especially given its impacts on climate change and its use of non-renewable resources. In addition, financial sustainability is often seen as inconsistent with environmental sustainability. The conclusions here are otherwise. Air transport does contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, but the climate change problem is a general one, and while addressing it has a cost, this cost is minimised when air transport is required to bear the environmental costs that it imposes. The reliance on non-renewable resources does give rise to a sustainability problem. There is not likely to be a problem of lack of financial sustainability of the industry, though addressing environmental objective will lead to a reduction in performance in the short run. Both environmental and financial sustainability of air transport can be achieved, as long as efficient policies are adopted.