KLM recently produced an advertisement encouraging the public to fly responsibly by only travelling if there was no other alternative. There is always an alternative, so be responsible, help save our planet and don't travel by aircraft. Reserve the use of aircraft to expedite people in need of urgent medical attention, combat hazardous fires, enhance security patrols.... etc, otherwise use the internet, travel by train, bus or ferry/ship. Simple

I'm certainly not a hater of the industry, but I think a carbon tax on jet fuel would be the easiest way to help the bean counters make the right decisions.[/QUOTE]

Please explain! How on earth does a carbon tax change anything except airfares?

If you and so many other crusaders here are truly concerned about the environment stop buying Chinese goods.

Maybe we could tax Japan, Indonesia, Philippines, Iceland etc. for their Volcanic emissions.

Oh, and lets ban motor racing of all kinds, it serves absolutely no purpose

Just wait until that Icelandic volcano with the impossible name erupts and spews loads of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

The only sound you'll hear from the "greenies" is moaning about not being able to travel anywhere.

Lowly pax speaking.
I would not automatically classify the 'whistleblower' as a 'greenie' or anything else related to that point of view. There is just as much chance the person is a highly disaffected member of staff who just wants to watch the fun whilst their boss and the Board jump through some hoops.

Having sat in a taxy queue at LHR for 40 mins (more than once) and observed the delights of Bovingdon, Ockham, Lambourne and Biggin (more than once) and enjoyed the benefits of a fast turnaround (more than once) we all know this is a storm in a teacup.

Furthermore, it's boring!

But what really gets to me is the degree of planetary destruction occasioned by the pernicious emissions of all those hot-air balloons. Has anyone given any thought to this major contributor to atmospheric degradation and how this contribution might be expanded by the tankering of extra gas bottles?

Are trains and ferrys more environmentally friendly over a long distance? What value do you place on the 1000KMs of environmental destruction you require to build the railway when about 3KM of runway at each port will get you anywhere in the world? The internet as well is not as environmentally firendly as you think it is. Think about the power required, the millions of miles of cable, the water use of the data centres etc etc End of the day everything costs something it just a question of the best use of resources.

Just think of all the jet fuel we could save if we stopped making reserve fuel mandatory? Hauling around all that fuel that is seldom needed?
Of course, we'd probably have the occasional LaMia Flight 2933, but we're saving the planet - you gotta accept a few casualties...

<yes, I'm being sarcastic>

Tankering is different in aircraft
 

Surely as a professional pilot you know that the impact on fuel consumption of added weight is vastly different for aircraft (where energy is consumed to counteract gravity as well as to overcome friction losses in moving the aircraft from point A to point B) than for wheeled vehicles (where energy is consumed only to overcome friction losses). The energy cost of "tankering" in a typical passenger automobile is probably very close to unmeasurably small.

Have you flown to remote islands or to small kleptocracies where fuel is silly expensive?

And how often does someone drive an extra few miles to buy fuel because it's twenty cents/pence cheaper? The penalty for carrying an extra few gallons of fuel may be unmeasurably small, but the fuel to drive the extra distance isn't...

Surely you would recognise that there are billions of "typical passenger automobiles" each putting out unmeasurably small amounts of emissions but combined would far exceed that of a few thousand aircraft that happen to be tankering.

Don’t know where you fly Savage but Alice Springs, most ports in regional WA and even Canberra all turn a profit tankering.

Airlines don't particularly want to tanker, but like any business they have an obligation to their shareholders to make money where possible. Profit is not a dirty word as you seem to suggest.
Look at the UK, US, Europe and Australia at the airlines, large and small, that have come and gone because they could not manage to make a profit. It may be "small beer" but its a combination of many "small beers" that could mean survival.

If its the environment issue that worries you, go talk to China

When do you choose to make an aircraft heavier for 'safety' reasons?

You've not read the link in post #1, then ?

Willie Walsh:

Long taxi time. Destination/Alt weather. Known Holding times. Etc. Etc.

um, almost every day

From what I recall (this was circa 2000-2005) fuel in India was really expensive.. we would regularly fuel up to arrival MLW for a KUL-DEL sector. Worked for Lufthansa at the time and I cant recall doing this for any other sectors.

Another time we did tankering was when we did the KUL-CGK-KUL shuttle .. this was with the same set of crew and the crew would usually fill up at KUL with enough for both ways. On two days of the week we had runway closure scheduled for just after our KUL-FRA departure at around 1am (this was at the old airport with only one runway). Considering that a fully loaded 747-400 will take anywhere from130-140 metric tonnes we are looking at a minimum 45minute refuelling time using both wing points. So what we did is to tell the crews to take additional fuel over the KUL-CGK-KUL sector so they would have more fuel in tanks and thereby reduce the refuelling time in KUL. All of the crews were very helpful as they would reap the benefits when they departed a few days later! BTW this wasnt official but nobody questioned it.. Here it's a question of operational efficiency overiding costs/ecological concerns. If we missed our slot and the runway was closed we would have to cancel the flight and put everybody in hotels etc.

Another aspect of tankering is shortened ground time. I know a lot of narrowbodies tanker fuel simply to cut the ground time down. While you can board pax while fuelling is going on there are a lot of things to consider and its just far easier to fill up more fuel in the first place.

Anilv