If a 6% reduction produces a 40,000 lb savings, then the base production is over 600,000 lbs. Praising a 6% reduction in CO2 production from an activity that generates over 600,000 lbs in CO2 is a truly bizarre form of "green" celebration! Is coal suddenly "green" if we reduce its CO2 output by 6%?

The fact is that in a carbon constrained world, reduced air travel has to be a reality. We need to get used to that and start creatively responding to it instead of fantasizing about how to "green" a basically "dirty" activity.

This is right up there with Tom Friedman, green advocate, building a 10,000 sq ft house, or National Geographic, advocate for endangered ecosystems, sponsoring a round the globe "ecotourism" trip on a 747 re-outfitted to only hold 50 passengers.

I agree with you John, but I guess the reality is people aren't going to stop flying anytime soon and are in fact flying more and more. Yes taking the train or bus is great alternative for short flights, but this route is too long. We should encourage conservation and progress in technology. Lifestyle change and integration of energy saving methods.

Seems mostly irrelevant. How many of these practices are scalable? Probably not the priority treatment on take-off and landing, nor having enough tugs around to pull every plane to the runway and enough ground space for them to shuttle back to the gates. I bet they could save more by having each passenger lose 10 or 15 pounds from either their luggage or their bodies...

The towing idea isn't new. Richard Branson proposed this a while ago and then quietly withdrew it after Boeing strongly advised against it because it would weaken the planes!

One thing not mentioned here -- I've read recently about how planes could fly more direct routes if they installed GPS systems which I found both scary and laughable.

Yes, Aviation does create a tremendous amount of emissions but I think they deserve some kudos for advancement, if only the car industry followed their lead.

Through technology like biofuels and new aircraft like the Airbus 380 and the Boeing B787 that burn on average 67 passenger miles per gallon( what does the average car burn), through efficiency steps like the work on NextGen which will transform the entire air traffic control in the US, shorter routes can reduce millions of tons of carbon per year. Airlines will probably always create some level of emissions and offsets can bridge that gap but they have come a long way.

cool

I was more than a little surprised to read that the plane was washed. That's a lot of water down the drain. Aren't we trying to conserve water in this day and age?

Then, do planes actually carry excess weight that can be trimmed? What was "pruned out---the seats? I have a mental picture of passengers standing and strap-hanging like on an underground train.

All the larger commercial aircraft have GPS, as well as INS (inertial navigation systems, which are self-contained), as well as more traditional (old-fashioned) navigation systems. Not taking direct routings has nothing to with aircraft ability, it is due to air traffic control's inability to resolve flight path conflict resolution issues in remote areas that lack radar coverage. NextGen air traffic control will improve (but not solve) these problems, but like any government infrastructure program, will be fairly expensive. Like the grid, this is another project best addressed by the innovative systems engineers at Google...

I was not much impressed. When I first read the title of the article, first thing came to my mind was that they might have used methanol (like what Virgin Atlantic used last year for a trial flight from Europe to NYC), or something of that nature. But this, although a good measure, wasn't very impressive or encouraging. Anyway, doing something green is better than doing nothing at all.

the "green" results are good news. but why does this new frontier have to come at the expense of civil rights? the wall street journal reported that the airline says that "tough rules are enforced, including some that would be deemed discriminatory in the West, such as weight requirements and a no-pregnancy policy for unwed women."

the WSJ also wrote: "Openly gay male attendants need not apply. Premarital sex and homosexuality are both illegal in Dubai."

Well, a FULL 787 may get 67MPG. But 4 people in a Prius can get 200MPG, again measured per passenger.
A bus or a train will likely get much more than that, still.

And how often is the 787 full and what % of the time is it cruising?

As poster John (#1 said), air travel will never be green, no matter how you look at it.

When you travel 8000+ miles in a day, you are blowing the oil and CO2 for 6 months of daily car travel in one fell swoop.

Saving a few % here and there is not going to make any real difference. By all means do, but the solution is LESS AIR TRAVEL. Especially all the "vanity travel" that is going on because pople are too snobby to take the train or bus, or "just need to get away".

Air travel would have to be 400 MPG before I would call it green.

You got it right Jus7ime. This is a marketing ploy to grab headlines. 'Gee we're saving the earth by washing a fossile fuel gobbeling jet before we fly around the world'. I teach a class in energy efficient data centers and I flag Dubai as having the distinction of the most arrogant use of energy for this collossal albatross:

http://www.skidxb.com/English/facts_eng.htm?mid=1&sid=2

Yup, you got it right, an indoor ski resort in the desert, remember that next time you're looking at the energy tag on a refrigerator!

In the film Zeitgeist, they call air travel not just inefficient and bad for the environment, but also "slow" !!! They explain futuristic technology based on magnetic propulsion, which can supposedly transport people between Asia and America in a matter of hours.

Back To more routine matters,I am intrigued as to how they compute the per capita air travel emissions. Is it based on the fuel savings when the weight of one passenger and his luggage are absent?

Just a thought,
While discriminating (excluding) unwed pregnant females, homosexuals, ugly people or whatever is patently wrong and would not be legal, or tolerated, by most airlines, the personal weight issue is intriguing.
Especially now that I get charged $25 dollars to bring an bag that is 8 lbs more than the 50lb mark on a domestic flight. The thing that gets me is that I know that I weigh at least 20 lbs less than an average male traveler on that flight, so in combined weight, I'm still under average, thus saving the airline fuel and concurrent emissions.
Perhaps if airlines were paying more for fuel, or taxed on emissions estimates per flight, calculated in part as a function of the loaded plane's weight, charging people on a sliding scale based of "combined weight" of person + luggage doesn't seem ludicrous at all.
In the meantime, i'll still complain about being 140lbs and paying $25 in extra baggage fees for the weight equivalent of the guy sitting next to me's chin.
oops. i said it.

I realize that many pathfinder "projects" require more planning and resources than similar ones farther down the learning curve, but I have a feeling that 3 MONTHS worth of planning, special coordination between Iceland, Russia and Canada, the disruption to a multitude of other flights necessary to "prioritize" a single landing, plane washing, etc., probably more than countered the 40,000 lbs of carbon saved on one single flight. Not to mention the non-carbon related aspects like the smoother ascent, which isn't really explained. Just why do planes normally increase altitude incrementally? Maybe there is a significant safety issue, for example, that would argueably outweigh a few pound of carbon? Nowhere does it seem that they made any effort to improve on existing technology that might provide more significant increases in efficiency. Sounds like there was nothing "efficient" about this lone flight. Thinking INSIDE the box won't solve our problems.

A smoother ascent decreases time to get to cruising altitude, which is the altitude where the aircraft operates most efficiently. Aircraft usually climb incrementally due to flight path conflicts with aircraft above them. Safety isn't the issue. The biggest impediment to more efficient usage of airspace and flight path routings is a Federal Aviation Administration that doesn't have any incentive to increase performance. In aviation, much like in the renewable energy industry, the long-term economics actually favor environmentally sound decisions. But we often prefer to settle on shortsighted economic solutions.

To the point about passenger weight standards, the airlines will probably have to address total payload if/when carbon policy addresses air transportation. I doubt that a body composition fee will work out as a means test because of civil rights issues and because it misses the point. A fit 200 pounder is more of a fuel liability than an obese 180 pounder--weight is weight in terms of payload. I would imagine that total passenger weight including luggage may become a basis for a fee. Taking up extra seat space is another issue.

This all seems like distraction from the underlying dilemma though. Air travel can't ever be green if it means burning fossil fuels in a jet engine. A realistic carbon price will crush the airlines as they stand now. I heard it said that owning a private jet is not for the rich but for the filthy rich. Any air travel may become the realm the filthy rich under cap-and-trade.

Iceland? The depicted flight path doesn't come within 200 miles of Iceland. Maybe they mean Greenland.

The tugs are just another way to keep your eye off the ball. The tug used energy that was not counted in the equation. The flight path is not good for whats left of the polar icecaps. What a joke!

Here is a late comment. The flight time saving was 4.5%. Total fuel saving was 6%. So, roughly, the on-ground measures saved 1.5%. Impact is marginal and mostly unscaleable, as many commentators said.