Quick snapshot form a Flt Int article 23-29 Aug 2005.
"modern jets ...noise footprint is around 75% less and fuel effeiciency 70% better than the first jets.
of these gains the improved fuel efficiency is key, since each tonne of Jet-A combusted in aero engines produces 3.5 t of carbomn dioxide. Carbon emission is still the largest concern for environmental groups around Europe, says, Jeff Gazzard co-ordinator for the Green Skies Aliance of conservationist pressure groups. Transport is one of the largets non-natural sources of carbon and aviation, despite only accoun ting for 12% of the sectors CO2 emissions (compared with 75% for road transport), vegetation cannot absorb airborne emissions as it does at ground level.
But aviation has drastically cur its CO2 emissions and when civil aircraft are compared with other modes of transport aviations green credentials emerge:Airbus says the global aircraft fleet has an average fuel efficiency of 5.6 litres/100 passenger kilometres, assuming payloads of around 85%. The average fuel consumption for the global car fleet is 5.5 litres/100 passenger kilometres (based on an average of 1.64 people in cars)..........
Furthermore, aircraft fuel consumption is much better than that of buses and is around half that of high speed trains once electricity generation is taken into account ........
Yet despite these gains environmental groups still want much more drastic action........"
So overall, existing Australian domestic and international airlines, which have one of he youngest fleets in the world are right up there and getting better.
From Flt Intl again;
" The A380 will have a fuel efficiency of 3 litres/100 passenger kilomtres fully loade and would have to drop to a load factor of 63% to drop to the fuel consumption levels of even the most modern cars, which average 4.7 litres /100 passenger kilometres."
Australian aviation regulatory and safety issues aside where are the environmentalists on the intended use of old kero guzzling clunkers that use our energy capital rather than the entrepreneurs actual capital to allow ma and pa kettle and the kids to fly to their favourite holiday destination or the business traveller to steal a bit of cut price comfort just for the cost of that energy and a little bit.
I suspect that these old aircraft are being chased out of the UK and Europe. Faced with the choice of parting them out or donating them to third world countries the only alternative is to tart em up bring em here and try to float the business class for economy price idea.
From the above, the 60 seat all business class concept for economy price on its own would reduce the fuel efficiency of modern aircaft to a third or around 16.8 litres /100 passenger kilometres and a massive 28 litres?? / 100 passenger kilometres.applied to the early jets. The math might be a bit dodgy but the fact remains.
Maths aside it's really simple, as a business case you have 2 options,
1. Consume high technology modern aircraft designed to to minimise the volume of non renewable resource and therefore environmental impact. = the fare.
OR
2. Consume high volumes of a non renewable resource with high environmental impact substituted for capital by using fully superannuted old technology = the same fare.
The former requires a high level of capital commitment the latter a high level of consumption of our non renewable resources in the absence of capital.
Environmental issues aside, I thought robber barons were a thing of the past.
But then the robber barons of the past always relied on the general dumbosity of the population at large.