Industry consultant Andy Cooper asks whether the aviation industry can really reduce emissions without cutting flights
One of the observations regularly made about the need to respond to climate change is that we all as individuals need to change our behaviours, as well as governments strongly and actively leading the way.
I have been reflecting what this might mean in practice for the travel industry, and particularly the aviation sector.
I’m one of those ‘sad’ people who gets pleasure looking at flight tracking apps, simply to see what aircraft are moving where. I take this even more seriously if a member of my family is on a flight somewhere.
I was struck recently, when following the progress of my son from the Caribbean back to Amsterdam on his way to the UK, by just how many aircraft cross the Atlantic on overnight flights from all across North and Central America – somewhat less come from South America.
Whilst a few of these aircraft are operating cargo flights, the vast majority are carrying passengers, often with some level of freight within their holds. That pattern works in reverse later in the day, when the majority of transatlantic flights operate from Europe to North and Central America.
There is a limited amount of macro data on the number of transatlantic flights but looking online I noted this. According to the latest data from OAG’s Schedules Analyser, Summer 2025 will see more than 111,400 scheduled flights from Western Europe to the US, equivalent to about 530 per day, and presumably a similar amount headed in the opposite direction each day.
Putting that into passenger numbers, typical long-haul wide-bodied aircraft like Boeing 787s or Airbus A350s have a seating capacity of 300-350 passengers. Clearly, there are bigger aircraft, like the Airbus A380, although their numbers are relatively few, and there are a small number of narrow-body aircraft operating transatlantic flights.
However, if we assume load factors of around 85%, that means that not far short of 150,000 people are crossing the Atlantic every day, or more than one million each week – a number I had to double check as I didn’t believe it possible.
Clearly, there are a variety of reasons for those journeys – from simple leisure trips to global trade and diplomacy meetings.
From a practical perspective, is it realistic to say that those million people every week need to review their behaviours, to determine whether their flights are really necessary?
Of course, governments can potentially force a behaviour change by imposing punitive rates of tax on flights, although the legality of that approach is questionable.
It also raises the obvious question of how any tax revenue should be spent. In the UK, there is a firm policy that taxes are not ‘hypothecated’ – money raised from a particular project is not specifically allocated, but instead all tax revenues go into the general government spending pot.
There is also a question as to the overall economic impact of forcing a reduction in flying by this method.
Aviation does have both direct and indirect economic benefits, as well as social and political benefits, and some of these would undoubtedly be lost if some flights were taxed out of existence.
The aviation industry has long hung its hopes on avoiding the need for such massive changes by a series of step changes.
These include improved air traffic management (something which is desperately needed, particularly in Europe), the development of less carbon-emitting fuel (something which still seems a long way off), and other smaller changes – such as reducing the weight of aircraft contents and improved aerodynamic designs like winglets.
The challenge we face if aviation is to make a meaningful reduction in its emissions is that, ultimately, this is only likely to be achieved by reducing the numbers of travelling passengers and hence the number of flights.
Whilst that is not a change I really want to see, there may be no other achievable alternative. I would love to hear that there are better options and that those might work.