MAY 29

You think you hate sitting on the runway couped up in a plane that seems to be going nowhere. Well, the airlines (and the planet) hates it too. In 2007 $1.6 billion of jet fuel was burned by planes waiting in line to take off at airports. That's 740 million gallons of fuel.

And from the perspective of climate change 7.1 million metric tons of CO2.

{digg}http://digg.com/travel_places/Delayed_Flights_Wasted_1_6_Billion_of_Fuel_in_2007{/digg}And those numbers aren't going down. As fuel costs and delays increase, they're expecting about $2 billion to be wasted in 2008. All of this is from research by a U.S. Congressional Committee researching ways to decrease the costs of air travel.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be too much the airlines can do to decrease these numbers. The top suggestion of the committee is a billion dollar program to update America's RADAR system to a satellite pased system. This would allow flights to travel more direct paths, instead of having to alter course to stay on RADAR screens. And it would also allow air traffic controllers to keep an eye on planes constantly, instead of a blip every 12 seconds, as is currently the case.

satellite systems are already used all throughout the world, and the efficiency gains are obvious. Of course, the costs are tremendous. Just outfitting the planes with the new technology would cost $15 B. And then you need upgrades to the air traffic control stations as well as new satellites.

But it would apparently be more than worth it. While the cost of wasted fuel is only $2 B, the total cost to the economy, in lost productivity is around $41 B per year.

Via InsideCleanTech

Comments (4)

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It's worth it...but to whom?
written by Corban, May 29, 2008

Lost productivity is not the airlines' problem, therefore they won't see the gains in that area. It's off their radar. With fuel gains, it would take about 8 years to break even, and longer to actually have a positive NPV.

A case can be made for the satellite system though. Now you just need someone charming enough to deliver the sales pitch to CEOs.

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A larger problem
written by Pete Johnson, May 30, 2008

Obese passengers waste a lot more fuel than delays. I would like to see airline fares determined by the weight of the passengers. This is an environmentally friendly way of 'user pays'.

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written by TB, May 30, 2008

Didn't Richard Branson have a proposal to reduce this wastage by having all planes towed to the end of the runway instead of taxiing under their own power? Those little diesel-powered tow machines use a heck of a lot less fuel than the jet engines at those low speeds.

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written by Karkus, June 05, 2008

It seems that high fuel prices are going to help solve that problem -indirectly. Not only have a few small airlines gone out of business, but big airlines are starting to announce capacity cuts on the order of 10 %. That will help with delays (while enabling them to charge more so they can stay in business).

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