Title: CO₂ emissions reduction through creating a more sustainable airline's network operation for Europe

Authors: Daniel Van Der Mee Mendes

Addresses: Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, Weesperzijde 190, 1097 DZ Amsterdam, Netherlands

Abstract: CO₂ emissions reduction in the aviation industry is necessary to accommodate the predicted growth in passenger numbers and movements when following the targets of the Paris Agreement. A focus area of reducing CO₂ emissions is optimising operational aspects of the aviation industry. This research focuses on analysing and benchmarking the bigger European airlines on their CO₂ emissions per passenger nautical mile (nm) with the use of flight schedules, fuel burn numbers, fleet and seat configurations and load factors. Low-cost carriers produce less CO₂ emissions per passenger nm than full-service carriers with Transavia as the most sustainable airline. The average flight distance is decisive for this ranking and is closely followed by the load factors. Nevertheless, there is still a gap of 0.039 kg CO₂ emissions between Transavia and a best network option. Therefore, airlines should calculate the gap towards this best network option and adapt the influencing factors with the highest impact.

Keywords: sustainability; airlines; CO₂ emissions' operation; Europe.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSA.2021.117242

International Journal of Sustainable Aviation, 2021 Vol.7 No.2, pp.123 - 136

Received: 21 Dec 2020
Accepted: 27 Mar 2021
Published online: 24 Aug 2021 *

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