I know this isn’t entirely about the traveler experience, but I thought it would be a very interesting way to close the week nonetheless. I had the chance to speak with British Airways’ Head of Environment, Jonathon Counsell, yesterday. We spoke about a new program they’ve launched in cooperation with Rolls-Royce that will enable alternative fuels to be tested using engines on BA aircraft.

Basically, they’re inviting fuel suppliers to bring alternative fuels that are scalable and won’t have a negative impact on food, land, or water. Once they’ve got those narrowed down, they’ll run ground tests on the fuel and then eventually air tests as well. BA has always been very accessible, and I gladly took the chance to speak with them about this initiative. Read below for our discussion.

Cranky: What sort of interest have you seen from fuel suppliers to date?

Jonathon: We’ve had an ongoing debate with major fuel companies, so pretty much all the majors are interested. Three or four additional companies have approached us as well. We’re drawing up a short list of up to about a dozen companies.

Cranky: Other airlines, notably Virgin Atlantic and Air New Zealand, have run tests of biofuels recently. Would either of those fuels be eligible for testing in this program or do they not meet the criteria that you have set forth?

Jonathon: We’re not being overly prescriptive in terms of a particular fuel. It has to be what we call a drop-in fuel, meaning it has to work with existing technology. It has to be able to power the engines without modifying them, and it must work with existing supply technology. Also, it can’t compete with food, land or water supplies. I believe the Virgin fuel may not qualify because it competed for food crops. Apart from that, we’re not going to overspecify. We’ve intentionally called it alternative fuel instead of biofuel because it will be difficult for biofuel to meet those conditions because of the conflict with food or rainforest devastation. That being said, we’re not ruling out biofuel.

Cranky: Are there any incentives being offered to encourage fuel suppliers to participate? Is there a prize of some sort?

Jonathon:The big incentive is that any company that can supply fuel meeting the criteria will have a massive prize. Every airline around the world will want to buy it.

Cranky: What will you consider to be a successful test? Are there specific levels of fuel economy and emissions that must be reached for you to deem this a success?

Jonathon:We will lay out broad performance criteria. It needs to be commercially viable but we haven’t specified what that means yet.

Cranky: Are there any partners in this study beyond you and Rolls Royce? Have you involved any third party scientific organizations to oversee the data collection and interpretation?

Jonathon: No. Currently it’s just Rolls-Royce and ourselves. There will be a joint assessment between us. We’ll look at whether we need external experts on this or not. Rolls works with a number of universities, and so do we, and we’ll be looking at a number of contacts in the scientific field.

Cranky: You say testing will be complete by March 2009, but how long do you expect it to take before the results are finalized?

Jonathon:Quite shortly afterwards. Testing will start in January and it will take 4 to 6 weeks. Published results will be available shortly after the end of March.

Cranky: Will you be sharing the results of your study publicly?

Jonathon: Yes, we will be making the results public.

Cranky: What sort of response have you had from the community so far?

Jonathon: It’s been a very positive response from the community. We deliberately launched this prior to Farnborough and it’s certainly been a big topic of discussion.

Cranky: Have you spoken to any of your other partners about participating, like American Airlines?

Jonathon: Yes, we’ve had a couple of early conversations with American Airlines and certainly we’ll pick up on those.

So there you have it. It’s an interesting way to put this together. The idea is basically to say, “Hey, you got some good fuel? Come talk to us and we’ll let you test it on one of our engines for free.” I’ll be looking forward to seeing the results.

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Last week, JetBlue announced its new green initiative called “Jetting to Green.” A lot of it appears to be an effort to put together a nice little PR package of things they already do. I wrote about the details over on BNET, but there was one thing that I wanted to point out because it will change the customer experience.

You know those crappy disposable headsets that they used to hand out? The ones that you couldn’t hear anything from even if you pressed them uncomfortably close to your ear? Those are toast. Oh, the airline will still offer the upgraded headsets for $1, but if you don’t have that kind of big money, then you’re on your own. No, this really isn’t much of a loss, but it’s something to keep in mind for your next JetBlue flight (mine happens to be this weekend). A JetBlue spokesman tells me that they went through about 20 million free headsets last year. That’ll be a nice little cost savings for them.

And that’s really about it regarding the whole “green” thing from the customer experience perspective. Oh sure, they talked about not having an inflight magazine to save the environment, but, uh, they’ve never had one. So that’s not a change. Again, it’s mostly just bundling it up for PR purposes, and as I said a couple weeks ago, that’s smart for them to be proactive here. But for you, well, you might be able to win a Prius, but that’s about the only major change you’ll notice.

I started putting this post on the airlines and the environment together a long time ago, and then it fell by the wayside. I dusted it off this weekend, and fortunately it’s still relevant. In fact, it’s only going to continue to become a bigger and bigger issue as time goes by.

I was prompted to write this post when I saw that the green community was up in arms over an incident involving American awhile back. You probably remember this one. The airline had the “audacity” to fly an airplane from Chicago to London with, *gasp*, 5 passengers onboard. Why? Well, they had canceled the flight but they couldn’t reaccommodate everyone on the other flights. There were 5 people left over. They had to fly the plane over to London to pick up the people flying westbound anyway, so they let those 5 people onboard for the trip east. That would have been called good customer service back in the day, but now many will call it a crime against the environment. It’s amazing how quickly times change.

I think this incident makes it pretty clear that airlines need to be paying very close attention to their impact on the environment. Even if you don’t believe in global warming, you have to understand that this issue is going to continue to snowball from a PR perspective and it will likely result in higher taxes on airline tickets if the airline don’t pay attention. You need to look no further than the actions over in Europe to see what’s undoubtedly going to make its way stateside with increasing volume. Over there, they’re talking about carbon trading schemes and insanely high taxes. It won’t be much longer before it reaches a fever pitch over here as well.

Now, I do believe that there is a human impact on climate change, but I also think the airlines are going to bear far more of the burden than they should. Air travel accounts for somewhere between 2 and 3% of greenhouse gas emissions and probably a slightly larger percentage of overall global warming. That’s a pretty small number in the scheme of things, but that’s not going to be a good argument in the public eye. But even looking within that 2 to 3%, why is it the airlines and not other contributors to the aviation industry get hit the hardest?

Well, they’re the easiest ones to nail. The problem here for the airlines, of course, is that they can’t pass along all these additional costs to consumers, and for environmentalists, that’s probably the point. The green people want fewer flights, but that’s a very bad idea if you care about the economy. We’re having a hard enough time keeping flying affordable in this country with the cost of fuel right now. Additional taxes on air travel are going to be detrimental. How else can this issue be addressed?

It seems to me that the best place to focus efforts here is on the manufacturers. I know, I know. Indirectly, anything that happens to the airlines will force the manufacturers to be more green, because the airlines will demand it. But with US airlines conserving cash and not looking at new aircraft orders, pressure from the airlines on the manufacturers won’t result in much change for a long time.

By going after the airlines directly and taxing them further, you’re bound to hurt the environment even more. In Europe, you have greener options. You can take a train instead of flying, but in the US that’s rarely an option. So, as costs rise, people will just head to their cars more. Even with the price of gas where it is, if you lump more taxes on top of an airline ticket, it’s going to be less economically feasible to fly and people will drive. Cars are way worse for the environment than flying an airplane over the same distance.

So instead, let’s focus on the manufacturers. If we want to truly be green, we should be offering tax breaks and R&D funding to help create greener aircraft, and that really begins with the engine manufacturers in particular. That’s where I think the gains can be made. Let’s fund alternative fuel and fuel conservation research. That’s how we can really have the greatest impact.

A nice side benefit of attending JetBlue’s press conference yesterday was that I had the opportunity to meet Ian Gregor, Communications Manager for the FAA’s Western-Pacific Region. We started talking shop, and soon enough I realized that there was something worth writing about here.

LAX has recently started using Continuous Descent Approaches (CDA) for some flights arriving from the East. What, that’s not exciting to you?

Ok, let me explain exactly what that means. Better yet, let’s go with an image here.

Just about everyone is used to the stepped approach that has been the standard for some time (and I’ll guess nobody has experienced the drunken pilot approach). You know the feeling. The pilot reduces thrust, you start to descend, then he increases it and you start to flatten out. This goes on for quite some time until you end up on the ground. It’s like going down stairs, whereas the CDA is like going down a ramp. When the aircraft gets ready to descend, the pilot cuts power and the plane maintains a constant rate of descent all the way until touchdown.

That means no more powering up along the way and no more ear-busting changes in pitch of the aircraft. As you can imagine, that helps reduce noise (since the engines don’t spool up) and it helps reduce fuel usage. Good news for everyone, right? Why wouldn’t they have done this before?

Well, it’s not like there’s unlimited room to pull something like this off. You need to make sure that during your continuous descent, you don’t happen to get in the way of, oh, say, airplanes coming from Ontario or one of the other many airports in Southern California.

That’s why this can only be implemented for landings from the East. If you come from the North and West, you usually have to make that turn around downtown LA to come in. There just isn’t enough room to make this work out there. The good news, however, is that half of the arrivals at the airport come from the East. Although only half of those are using CDA right now, the other half will be soon enough.

This procedure was first tested in Louisville, and there was a “34 percent reduction in nitrogen oxide emissions below 3,000 feet, and a 30 percent reduction in aircraft noise within 15 miles of the airport. UPS aircraft flying this approach also save between 250 and 465 pounds of fuel per flight.” Sounds good to me. Maybe this will get some of those testy airport neighbors to stop whining so much.

They’re also rolling this out in other airports, so next time you come in for landing, see if you notice any difference.

Let’s stick with the green theme today and take a look at easyJet’s new ecoJet concept. They released plans for a plane that would be 25% quieter, reduce CO2 emissions by 50% (though 10% will come from unrelated air traffic control improvements), and emit 75% less NOx than your run of the mill 737 or A320 series aircraft. Pretty good numbers, huh? You can read all about it on their website.

Take a look at this picture from the Flight Global article.

As you can see, the plan is to use a different type of engine to power this guy. The unducted fan is basically what you’d see inside an engine today but without the casing that you see on every other jet flying. According to easyJet, this will “offer unrivalled environmental performance due to their higher propulsive efficiency.” This type of engine has been studied by manufacturers for years, but it hasn’t made it to a commercial jet yet.

Another distinct feature you can’t really see from this picture is that the wing is swept forward to reduce drag. This is definitely an airplane that would catch your eye at the airport. You’ll have to wait until 2015 to see it though . . . that’s the targeted launch.

So will it actually get built?

Probably not in its current form. This was designed internally by easyJet, so you know once Boeing and Airbus get their hands on it, it would change significantly. This is basically just an easyJet PR grab to announce that they want the big manufacturers to make more efficient planes. Though this big splash may not actively accomplish anything, the signal it sends to Boeing and Airbus is that demand for a new plane is there, and it’s demand that ultimately gets a new plane built. Of course, they could have done this in private discussions with the manufacturers, but then they wouldn’t have gotten all the buzz and goodwill they’re likely to get from a more public announcement.

I’m in a “green” kind of mood today. It’s probably because we just launched our new environmentally-friendly shopping guide, ShopGreen, here at PriceGrabber. So when I started thinking about what to write today, I immediately thought about the Fischer-Tropsch process.

Huh?

Fischer-Tropsch is actually the process of converting coal to liquid. In other words, we can take coal, of which there’s plenty in the US, and turn it into an oil substitute. As far as I can tell, we wouldn’t need to modify airplanes at all to run on this stuff.

Sounds great, right? David Neeleman, of JetBlue fame, has been pushing this process as the savior of our country for months now, and he’s starting to make headway. He and his machine are pushing a bill through Congress to give companies an incentive to build plants to make this happen.

One problem - it’s really bad for the environment. Ah, bummer. Thought we had this one solved.

To put this in context, take a look at this graph showing the impact of using liquefied coal instead of petroleum.

Not so good, huh? This graph, which originally ran in the New York Times, was pulled directly from a good TerraPass blog post on the subject. Now, Neeleman is pushing a program that would require carbon capture and storage, so the impact is only marginally worse than petroleum, but is that really what we should be shooting for here?

Why is Neeleman pushing this? Well, it does get us away from needing foreign oil. We could use our own coal supplies, but it’s pretty short sighted in the scheme of things. The cost and time needed to build these plants could be better spent on developing cleaner technologies instead of something that does nothing positive for the environment.

Sadly, it appears the political will may be there to get this passed. If Congress can talk about what they’ve done to move us towards energy independence, that will be great for them regardless of the environmental impact involved.

It seems like just yesterday Richard Branson was touting how his (Virgin Atlantic’s) planes were better because they all had four engines, unlike those British Airways 777s. He even painted it on his planes. You might recognize the picture on the left as a former integral part of the livery on the 4 engine A340-600.

Well, apparently he’s changed his mind.

Earlier this week, Branson entered into the environmentally (and pocketbook) friendly agreement with Boeing to order 15 787-9s with options for 8 more and purchase rights for 20 more. The 787 is going to theoretically be a rock star when it comes to fuel consumption, so Branson just couldn’t keep justifying the A340 “4 engine” thing any longer. I say theoretically because we haven’t actually seen the thing fly yet.

But being the shrewd businessman that he is, he’s not just calling this an aircraft order. Nay. It’s an environmental partnership.

Huh?

Well, I suppose you could say that just ordering the highly fuel-efficient aircraft is environmentally friendly, but he’s doing another couple of things as well. First, next year there will be a demonstration of biofuels in one of the Virgin 747s. I’m not sure how this is a partnership with Boeing because it’s the GE engines that really need to run on the fuels, but whatever.

Second, he’s still pushing ways to cut fuel burn on the ground. Boeing will now join Branson in his quest to get aircraft towed to “starting gates” near the end of the runway. That way they don’t need to turn on the engines until they’re ready to go. Again, I’m not sure what this has to do with Boeing since last time I checked, Boeing didn’t run any airports. Maybe they’re going to help modify the aircraft to make this easier?

No matter what, Branson is a very shrewd businessman. He knows that calling something environmentally friendly is going to get big press coverage these days. In reality, this is one of the glorious times where doing what’s right for the environment is also doing what’s right for the bank account. When that happens, it’s good news all around.

There has been growing concern over the environmental impact of aviation over the last few years. As you would probably expect, Europe has seen much more of a focus than the US, but there certainly has been a growing movement here as well. What does this mean for the industry?

Well, the good news is that everyone’s interests are aligned here in the long run. Those in the environmentalist movement want airlines to pollute less and airlines would love to oblige - that would mean better fuel efficiency and lower costs. In an ideal world where everyone can hold hands and sing Kumbaya, airlines would fly quiet aircraft powered by happiness and rainbows around the world in 10 minutes. That’s not going to happen in the short run, or, um, ever, but we can expect to see significant technological improvements from the aircraft manufacturers. Boeing’s 787, for example, is expected to be 35% more fuel efficient as compared to the 767 it replaces. But these improvements are not going to happen overnight, so what do we do in the short run?

Well, environmentalists want to see curbs on aviation growth. That latest news to stoke the fire is the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change out of the UK. This government sponsored report says that global warming is very real and will have dire consequences if we don’t act quickly. The report singles out aviation as being very concerning, especially short haul flights. According to this summary, possible solutions include a “green tax” or giving specific carbon allowances to individuals that they can use as they please.

Unsurprisingly, nobody in the airline business agrees with this, especially the low cost short haul carriers in Europe. And who better to lead the charge than Ryanair’s shy and reserved leader, Michael O’Leary.

O’Leary’s argument is centered around the statement that aviation is only a small part of global warming (2% of CO2 emissions), especially compared to road traffic (18%) and power generation (26%). Of course, aviation is an easy target, and politicians love to tax it whenever they can, so once again it will be singled out unfairly.

As O’Leary says, “If you listen to them you would think aviation was responsible for melting the polar ice caps, heating up the globe by 2pc a year and for every war, pestilence and SARS epidemic.” Clearly, that’s not the case.

This is something that should alarm every traveler. Yes, it’s important to work with aircraft manufacturers on new technologies to reduce pollution, but penalizing aviation in the short run is not the answer to the world’s problems. Aviation is important for the world’s economic growth, and while I do believe that global warming is a problem, there are far better areas on which to focus that could yield better results than punishing aviation.

If you read the newspaper, watch tv, or have any other connection with the outside world, you probably know that Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin empire (including Virgin Atlantic Airways), is pretty good at drawing attention to himself (look left). This week, it was plastered all over the news that he is giving $3 billion to invest in alternative fuel (from which he’ll handsomely profit, no doubt), but there’s more to his plan to save the earth (er, save money) than this.