Tag Archives for environmental impact.
Sheraton Frankfurt Airport is steps from the terminal, where virtually every guest is flying in or out — yet the hotel says bar soap isn’t “sustainable,” even on request. In the same email, it offers to deliver printed newspapers, and its own photo gallery still shows bar soap in the bathroom.
United and American are bringing Embraer E175 service to Carlsbad, and the local response is the most California thing imaginable: lawsuits demanding a land-use veto and CEQA review. Federal law makes it nearly impossible to block airline service at a public use airport, but that won’t stop activists and city hall from making it expensive and annoying anyway.
There’s some eco-friendliness in the move, along with a drive to making pandemic cost cuts permanent. Whether customers enjoy the new amenities or not is what’s ultimately key. The wine in can they’ve selected may be perfectly fine compared to what’s usually served in domestic premium cabins, but I’d rather have wine selected on the basis of its quality and drinkability in the air than on the basis of packaging.
1% of people are responsible for 50% of commercial aviation emissions. And this is not at all surprising, since only about 1 in 9 people in the world even fly at all in a given year. Air travel is far more common in North America and Europe than in Africa, for instance, though Africa’s aviation sector is growing.
People are using this 1% number to argue for new global restrictions on airlines, but let’s break down what it means.
It turns out what while aviation’s contribution to global emissions has been growing as worldwide air travel has grown (pre-pandemic), it hasn’t increased in relative importance. Between 2000 and 2018 aviation has steadily accounted for about 3.5% of climate-affecting emissions, and that includes commercial and cargo flights, according to a new study from climate scientist David Lee and Manchester Metropolitan University.
What’s especially interesting though is just how aviation appears to affect climate. It’s contrails that matter most – water vapor and exhaust forming ice crystals.
Hotels encourage you to fly out for a stay while they replace single use plastic toiletries with bulk wall mounted shampoo, and offer to let you skip housekeeping, telling you these cost saving measures are out of their concern “for the environment.”
The Dutch government wants to ban flights between Brussels and Amsterdam for the environment since apparently it’s more environmentally friendly to connect at Heathrow or Frankfurt.
Ponder whether you should fly at all, while you continue to have kids and eat meat…
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
