Title: Reflection of sustainability issues in airline strategies and overview of life cycle cost analysis

Authors: Zeliha Akça

Addresses: Turkish Airlines Inc., Türk Hava Yolları Genel Yönetim Binası, Yeşilköy Mahallesi, Havaalanı Cad., No. 3/1, 34149, İstanbul, Turkey

Abstract: This study reviews airline fuel efficiency strategies in response to industry sustainability trends based on reports of sector regulators, forecasters and airlines. Major strategies to achieve fuel efficiency are listed and fuel efficiency gains with new generation aircraft is expressed with numbers. The strategy of replacing aging aircraft with younger and/or next generation aircraft provides the largest amount of fuel efficiency. This paper focuses on this strategy discussing the motivating factors and trends. Since aircraft are longlife assets and operating cost of aircraft can change significantly, evaluation of aircraft acquisition projects requires meticulous study of costs and benefits over the life span of the project. This study reminds life cycle cost methodology to economically evaluate replacement projects. Accordingly, the paper describes general steps of the methodology and reviews literature on life cycle cost analysis indicating that the lack of papers focusing on replacement projects from the perspective of an airline.

Keywords: sustainability; fuel efficiency; airline industry; life cycle cost analysis; economic analysis; life span; economic life; aircraft replacement analysis; evaluation of aircraft acquisition; replacement of aging aircraft; selecting new generation aircraft.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSA.2018.094226

International Journal of Sustainable Aviation, 2018 Vol.4 No.2, pp.133 - 146

Received: 09 Jan 2018
Accepted: 19 May 2018
Published online: 22 Aug 2018 *

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