Kieran Daly: September 2008 Archives

Well I suppose the headline above is pretty well guaranteed to spark the critics into action, but the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Users Group launched by Boeing, Honeywell, a group of ten airlines, and two environmental groups has had a remarkably neutral reception. In the tinderbox of the aviation environmental debate that's quite a success.

Another noteworthy feature of this project is that it was kept quiet until launch - also quite a feat in the leaky aviation world. The two points may not be unconnected. Obviously the new group now has to deliver, but in the short term it's difficult to argue with its aims, and opponents may just be drawing breath.

Meanwhile, I've scoured the blogosphere and just about nobody has a rude word to say about it - for now. This blog is from Liz Barratt-Brown at the Natural Resources Defense Counsel (NRDC) which is one of the partners in the group - but it's an interesting viewpoint all the same.

It's the annual conference of the Conservative Party in the UK. Regardless of how thrilling or otherwise you may find this, the fact is that they are very publicly committing to actions that stand an excellent choice of forming the manifesto of the next national government.

And a huge commitment they made today was to confirm beyond any doubt that they do not intend to go ahead with approving a third London Heathrow runway. That came from shadow transport secretary Theresa Villiers. Their leader David Cameron said as much before, and so did London's Conservative mayor Boris Johnson (although he has his own unique wrinkle on the argument). Now there's no going back.

They'll be spending the money on high-speed rail from major northern cities and London instead.

The declaration has had predictably but decidedly mixed receptions as reported here in The Guardian and here by the BBC. This of course is not a debate that lends itself to neat conclusions - but the "false choice" between air and rail argument does seem relevant.

In the reasonably plausible event of the next election ending with a Conservative victory but a 'hung' parliament, the Tories could count on the Liberal Democrats for support on this issue.

Peter Bakker, who I've not met, is CEO of the integrated freight company TNT, and a very interesting man. He's close enough to aviation to know a great deal about it, but distant enough not to be too much in love with it. And he's just said something fairly remarkable.

TNT operates or controls more than 40 aircraft worldwide under the TNT Airways brand. Most of them are short/medium-haul frieghters for express deliveries. But the airline also has a couple of  Boeing 747-400ERFs for long-range services - notably Europe-China.

Business is good and the airline needs more long-haul aircraft, but Bakker says TNT has told Boeing he won't be acquiring more 747s.

My colleague Brendan Sobie talked to him at the Cargo Facts symposium in Miami about why - read below why Bakker thinks what he thinks.

At one point it looked as if the war was won over the proposed third Heathrow runway. The UK Labour government was onside and supporters were cautiously confident. But one way or another the whole debate is up for grabs again - particularly since the Conservatives took everyone by surprise and said they won't support it if they get in. So today BAA, through the Future Heathrow grouping, turned up the pressure with the backing of 100 entities of various sorts, but overwhelmingly from the business community, and in large part from the financially muscular end of the sector.

At time of writing it has to be said that this Monday press release wasn't actually getting a lot of traction - but the names are actually pretty impressive and will certainly give the Conservatives food for thought.

Assuming all goes well, Air New Zealand and the US FAA will today complete an interesting demonstration of optimised ATM and flight-operational techniques on a flight from Auckland to Los Angeles. The FAA is making a big deal of it - administrator Bobby Sturgell is expected to turn up personally to watch the arrival.

Seems that at long last ATM is getting the prominence it needs as an environmental tool. ANZ press release below. Couple of newspaper stories here and here.

Student journalists learn early on that the word 'first' is a dangerous one to throw about casually, but anyway...Solazyme of San Francisco is claiming "to have produced the world's first microbial-derived jet fuel". The fuel is derived from algae and Solazyme says it passes the ASTM D1655 standard for aviation turbine fuel.

I don't know them personally, but they do seem to have had some success in raising reasonably serious money, and at least some biofuel watchers are suggesting they're closer to producing something usable on an industrial scale than anyone else. More opinions and info welcome.

Rather out of the blue, IATA, CANSO and Eurocontrol have come out with a heavyweight document that seriously sets about realising environmental gains by optimised air traffic management. It's a "five-point plan" that essentially lays out the things that will definitely have to be done in order to get the benefits that are generally accepted to be achievable.

We can only hope it's followed up with action. ATM - in both the US and Europe in fact - is the one bright hope for emissions reduction in the forseeable future.