‘Flight shame’: Qantas’ next big challenge is climate guilt
Qantas boss Alan Joyce has no doubt what the biggest long-term challenge is for his airline once it recovers from the once-in-a-generation crisis of COVID-19. “We need to make sure that people do not feel they need to stop flying,” he says. Amid increasingly dire warning that humanity is failing to avert catastrophic global warming, aviation has a major pollution problem. Cars are going electric, and renewables are replacing coal-fired power plants, but there is no quick solution for the carbon dioxide jetliners spit out. It accounted for 2 per cent of global emissions pre-pandemic. Europeans concerned about climate change and suffering flygskam (Swedish for “flight shame”) are limiting or swearing off air travel in what Joyce says is a threat to the airline industry. “People have got to this decision: is it protecting the environment or is a flying?” he explains in an interview. “That’s an obligation to us as custodians of Qantas to fix that and making sure people believe they can do both.” Qantas made a major step forward in that immense task last month when it pledged to cut its net emissions by a quarter by 2030 from 2019 levels, and laid out a pathway to net zero in 2050. There are three key elements, starting with buying new aircraft that burn up to 20% less fuel while using smarter flight planning to save millions of gallons of gas. But the big hope for Qantas, and the airline industry as a whole, is to replace kerosene jet fuel with “sustainable aviation fuel” (SAF). Made from crops, household waste, animal fat and other biomass, SAF produces around one-fifth the emissions of conventional jet fuel.<br/>
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/news/hot-topics/2022-04-11/oneworld/2018flight-shame2019-qantas2019-next-big-challenge-is-climate-guilt
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‘Flight shame’: Qantas’ next big challenge is climate guilt
Qantas boss Alan Joyce has no doubt what the biggest long-term challenge is for his airline once it recovers from the once-in-a-generation crisis of COVID-19. “We need to make sure that people do not feel they need to stop flying,” he says. Amid increasingly dire warning that humanity is failing to avert catastrophic global warming, aviation has a major pollution problem. Cars are going electric, and renewables are replacing coal-fired power plants, but there is no quick solution for the carbon dioxide jetliners spit out. It accounted for 2 per cent of global emissions pre-pandemic. Europeans concerned about climate change and suffering flygskam (Swedish for “flight shame”) are limiting or swearing off air travel in what Joyce says is a threat to the airline industry. “People have got to this decision: is it protecting the environment or is a flying?” he explains in an interview. “That’s an obligation to us as custodians of Qantas to fix that and making sure people believe they can do both.” Qantas made a major step forward in that immense task last month when it pledged to cut its net emissions by a quarter by 2030 from 2019 levels, and laid out a pathway to net zero in 2050. There are three key elements, starting with buying new aircraft that burn up to 20% less fuel while using smarter flight planning to save millions of gallons of gas. But the big hope for Qantas, and the airline industry as a whole, is to replace kerosene jet fuel with “sustainable aviation fuel” (SAF). Made from crops, household waste, animal fat and other biomass, SAF produces around one-fifth the emissions of conventional jet fuel.<br/>
