British Airways And The 5 Tonne Businessmen
Posted by keith on February 4th, 2008
I don’t make a habit of swearing, but this morning has been testing, to say the least. Formerly known as the “World’s Favourite Airline” until the world decided that it wasn’t too fond of airlines pushing out carbon dioxide into its upper atmosphere, British Airways have decided, in its eternal wisdom, to kit out a couple of Airbus A318s for its most luxury conscious business travellers. An article in The Guardian (which happens to carry popup adverts on its website for said airline), states:
“The route announced yesterday will see two daily flights between London City airport, next door to the capital’s financial district, and JFK. BA will use two Airbus A318 planes fitted out with flat beds and carrying a maximum of 32 passengers.”
“Willie Walsh, British Airways’ chief executive, said: ‘Given the range of corporate clients that we have based in and around London City, we thought it was a great opportunity. It’s about us being innovative and listening to our customers.’ “
I stared at this article, wondering how ostentaciously polluting it was possible to be, and short of having your own private jet, this is pretty close. The Airbus A318 is normally equipped to carry 107 passengers, but try to get hold of the carbon emissions figures for this aircraft and you find that Airbus have conveniently removed them from their information pages. Airbus’ head office in Toulouse likes to cut callers off when they mention carbon emissions, so I resorted to using the ClimateCare (don’t even think of going there to offset your flights – just don’t fly, for goodness sake!) calculator, which gives a typical return flight from London City to New York JFK as 1.55 tonnes of carbon dioxide. That’s about the same as the total annual carbon emissions for a person in Uruguay.
Turn a 107 seater plane into a 32 seater plane, like British Airways are doing, and you can then multiply the emissions per person, per flight by 3.31, giving each rich businessman (yes, they are almost all men) a total of 5.18 tonnes of carbon dioxide for their return flight. That’s 35% more than the total annual carbon emissions for a person in China!
This from a company that states:
“We are leading the climate change debate in our industry.”
If they are the leader in the industry then I think it is fair to say that you should never listen to an air executive when they talk about climate change.
July 21st, 2009 at 3:25 pm
And the passengers will be paying premium rates of Air Passenger Duty for the priviledge. The aviation industry more than meets its environmental obligations as stated in The Department for Transport paper ‘Aviation emissions cost assessment 2008’. In fact, aviation is the only mode of transport that makes a net contribution to the Treasury. British Airways is correct in stating that it’s a leader in combating climate change. Since 1998 they’ve reduced carbon emissions by 20% and the average passenger on a British Airways flight last year emitted just 111 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre. To put that in perspective, a Ford Focus emits 169 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre.
Perhaps you also aren’t aware that airlines such as Lufthansa use Privatair, flying all-business class Boeing 737 aircraft across the Atlantic – these flights are not subject to the levels of Air Passenger Duties that UK flights are. Your targetting of British Airways is cynical and misdirected.
[Aaah, poor darlings paying that extra few quid so they can stretch out their giraffe-like bodies – it must really hurt their bank balances. The only good thing about APD is that with the profit margins on flights now being so low, it could really screw up the airlines. More airlines going bust? Brilliant! :-D ]
July 23rd, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Yep, it’s great, huh? More unemployed people, longer and deeper recessions, bigger budget deficits for the government and higher tax rates to make up the short fall. Basically airlines going bust is a disaster all round. Unfortunately your tinted glasses prevent you from seeing the issue objectively.
Really curious, do you have a job? If so, what field/industry is it in?
July 25th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Daniel, airlines going bust is a disaster for the airline industry that makes its money off the back of burning kerosene to transport people (which it enthusiastically encourages) to fly to places they don’t need to go to.
Has there ever been a less sustainable way of operating?
I used to be an IT Manager in the finance industry – I learnt how the economy operates by being responsible for the secure movement of trillions of Euros, Pounds and Dollars every day. Basically I was one button away from bringing down the financial system, and couldn’t stand the hypocrisy. Now we live comfortably on a modest single salary with very few outgoings, going down all the time. We don’t fly; we rarely drive.
July 28th, 2009 at 5:26 am
[Daniel posted another comment which showed he is enamoured with the growth economy – my blog, I have no time for him or his mindset, so will remove any more of his comments.
Daniel, please read http://earth-blog.bravejournal.com/entry/28508 — if you wish to comment on this, please do so at The Earth Blog]