Sustainable Transport and the Environment Guide - Unite the Union

avoid higher fees on flights to the Canary Islands from Manchester and Birmingham
by utilising Tango routes over the sea. Using such routes adds around 3,000 tonnes of
CO 2 to the atmosphere on each flight. The airlines excuse was that it wanted to avoid
congestion in the Boulogne area of France to guarantee an on time arrival and
departure. It was however also over €800 cheaper to use that route
This is not an isolated incident as it has been discovered by Omega 38 that a number of
airlines route flights based on financial considerations rather than taking what would
be the most environmentally friendly 39 . A simple method to change this practice is to
increase the cost of tango routes so that they are charged in line with a harmonised the
price across Europe. Whilst this would not eliminate the use of tango routes it would
focus the attention of operators more on the amount of fuel burnt and to the volume of
CO 2 produced. Whilst the concept of a single European Sky will help this ideal it will
not resolve the charging issues raised by Tango route operations.
The CAT National Committee therefore calls for international co-operation to
harmonise the costs of air traffic management across Europe and for tango routes
to be charged by the distance travelled in order to eliminate the financial incentives
to fly further. We, in addition, call on governments to cooperate on access to
national airspace so as to avoid unnecessary in-flight distance and to coordinate
their actions to eradicate unnecessary fuel burn and emissions into the
environment.
Unsurprisingly cleaner engines work more efficiently than dirty ones. Therefore the
provision to wash the engines without the need to dismantle them has been explored.
Keeping the compressor, turbine, and fan of a jet engine clean decreases fuel
consumption by 0.5 to 1.5 per cent. Considering the cost of fuel and the level of
emissions produced by a jet turbine, is well worth doing. In the old days, airline
mechanics simply used a fire hose but this created significant delays due to the need
to allow the resultant black sludge (a heavy-metal cocktail of cadmium, lead, and
arsenic) to drain, which usually ended up all over the tarmac. Pratt & Whitney's
EcoPower Engine Wash rig shoots a pressurized spray into the engine, scouring the
blades of the turbine to a shine and captures the run off keeping the tarmac clean.
Although this new process still takes the aircraft out of service for an hour, this is
considerably less time than it would take to dismantle, clean and reassemble the
engines or wait for the engine to dry out after being blasted by a fire hose. The
provision of this facility is currently only available within Europe at Amsterdam
Schipol airport.
Unlike CO 2 , emissions from aviation vary considerably with altitude. Contrails for
example require cold hypa-saturated air to be formed which typically can be found
over Europe at between 30,000 ft and 40,000 ft. Most aircraft currently cruise at
35,000 feet which the ideal altitude for flights to maximise their fuel efficiency at the
speed at which they are designed to travel. Redesigning aircraft to fly lower and
slower or higher and faster could almost eliminate contrail formation. Another option
would be to accurately map where these areas of hypa-saturated air likely to be
located using more accurate weather forecasting and route around them. Currently the
38 Report into Air traffic management costs in Europe by Dr Lucy Budd of Loughborough University
and Dr Tom Reynolds from the University of Cambridge
39 Examples of cost comparisons on three routes in Europe can be found in Appendix 7 below
41