Litres and Litres
Heathrow Director.
Having operated in and out of Heathrow for many years I appreciate what the extra work load may mean. However for some reason the media has singled out aviation as the worst transportation polluter. Having just watched the BBC doc "Should we give up flying ?" it can be safely said that we as an industry must look for improvements, whatever the logistical implications.
Probably because to examine their own driving habits would be too difficult.
That said, the nose wheel tugs where meant to be "high speed' tugs. They are at least capable of sufficient speeds and when holding on the taxiway is expected they could be used. Their speeds could also be used to meter traffic in the sense that once all the traffic is moving it does not need to be doing 20+ knots to keep the departure flow rate the same.
As for better maintained, a badly maintained tug will still pollute far less than 4 Trents. Oh and you could service the tug too !!
For us long haul guys it means having a little extra fuel en-route on the days we would have cut into contingency before we even get off the ground.
We are talking about the savings of millions of litres per day industry wide. Surely we can sort soomething out.