Study Says More Time at the Gate Equals Less Airplane Emissions

planes-at-gate
We recently told you about how new guidelines for streamlining flight paths and landings could cut fuel use by 15 percent and result in a nice decline in emissions. Now, researchers at MIT say that more time at the gate could also slash fuel use and emissions from aircraft.

The study, funded by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, was carried out at Boston Logan International Airport where the researchers found that if planes were held at their gates for an average of four minutes and 18 seconds, runway congestion cleared up. That lead to 20 percent less taxiing time for the planes, which reduced fuel use by 75 liters per plane. As a bonus, even with the wait time, planes were actually up in the air more quickly without the traffic jam on the runway.

Taxiing accounts for the emission of 6 billion tons of CO2 a year in domestic U.S. flights with European flights emitting a similar amount of greenhouse gases from taxiing. If the new flight path and landing guidelines were paired with four minutes wait time at the gate, aviation emissions could be reduced by millions of tons a year.

via New Scientist

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The Politics of Green
written by Ross Wolfe, March 26, 2011

Recently I wrote a blog entry offering a leftist critique of the ideology of "Green" environmentalism, eco-friendliness, and lifestyle politics in general (veganism, "dumpster diving," "buying organic," etc.). I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the matter and any responses you might have to its criticisms.

and more time to catch flight?
written by sarah, March 27, 2011

that would be nice if the planes were held up a bit waiting for flights if they didn't push off immediately on time and you actually made the flight you were late for because the connecting flight arrived late. so often it seems we missed them by a minute. if it would make their system more efficient...arrive a few min sooner push off a few minutes later... It might not be impossible to catch your flight if 1st flight was delayed! ahhh to dream.

-1

Direct routes
written by Ed, March 31, 2011

So often passengers buy flights via another destination because of the excessive price of direct flights. If this could be overcome it would have a significant reduction of carbon per passenger trip plus reduce the frustrating transit lounge waits. But it will mean a complete rethink of the airline hub concept.

...
written by Andy, March 31, 2011

Sarah, the problem with your idea is that your first flight, which you would want to leave a couple minutes early, could be somebody's second flight, that they want to leave a couple minutes late. Thus there is a problem. One suggestion could be that airlines just start paying attention and giving more time in between flights, but once again, it's not one of those things where if you fly from Florida to Philadelphia and then on to Maine. That flight from Philadelphia isn't just going to have people flying from Florida on it, and so they have no way of knowing if they even need to wait or not.

Maybe I am missing something?
written by Gordon Gearn, March 31, 2011

I don't follow this logic. If we make a stop light longer then will be less traffic?

Waiting really can speed things up.
written by William Fraser, April 02, 2011

I was amazed to find that traffic sped up considerably when they added "metering lights" to slow up the onramps.

I imagine that something similar would happen with airplanes, although the way the article reads sounds a bit simplistic (i.e. one wouldn't want the plane to wait a few minutes if there is no line of planes ready to leave, and you'd want the planes to wait even longer as the line -- even that portion of the line which is still waiting at its gate -- grew).

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Study Says More Time at the Gate Equals Less Airplane Emissions

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