Carbon offsetting has been branded a “get out of jail card” for airlines to mask a lack of action on the environmental issues facing the aviation sector.
Carriers were accused of failing to face up to these vital challenges in a BBC Panorama expose on Monday night (11 November) which asked: “Can flying go green?”.
Ahead of the show, the BBC called out British Airways for its practice of “fuel tankering” – operating aircraft with excess fuel to avoid filling up at destination airports.
The primary benefit of fuel tankering is to save money, but it comes at the expense of increasing carbon emissions owing to aircraft having to carry additional weight.
BA, though, said tankering was not exclusive to BA and was a sector-wide practice, employed to mitigate fluctuations and disparities in fuel costs in different countries and at different airports, and for operational reasons such as where turnaround times are too tight to adequately refuel upon arrival.
The show assessed a number of developments within aviation that could make flying greener such as new fuels, electric aircraft, and more stringent enforcement of preventative climate change action set out in international agreements.
Read more at: TTG
