Posted on 03/16/2008 6:44:56 PM PDT by Paleo Conservative
British Airways has sparked an environmental row by flying a jumbo jet 6,000 miles to Hong Kong without a single passenger on board.
The Boeing 747 made the 11-hour trip manned by just four flightdeck crew, while all 300 seats behind them remained empty.
During its journey from Heathrow, BA Flight 0027 burned a massive 140 tons of fuel – the equivalent of filling 5,400 family-sized cars – and emitted 329 tons of CO2.
Passengers due to board the aircraft last Sunday were told by BA staff that not enough cabin crew were available for duty and they caught a later flight.
It is thought that scores more planes are being flown without passengers all over the world.
Today, another BA jumbo due to fly from Heathrow to Bombay in India is expected to have no passengers on both its outward and return journeys. The 9,000-mile round trip will burn at least 200 tons of fuel and emit 486 tons of CO2.
BA claims on its website that it is "leading the climate change debate" in the aviation industry to reduce the carbon footprint and that the "most senior people at British Airways are taking a leading role".
It adds: "Together, we promote technology that helps limit the impact of aircraft."
But Greenpeace climate campaigner Anna Jones said: "Aviation is now responsible for 13 per cent of the UK's impact on the climate, and this figure is rising fast.
"While the airlines tell us they desperately need new terminals and runways, they fly empty planes halfway across the world.
"Gordon Brown needs to get a grip on this industry before its wastefulness ruins our chances of tackling climate change."
And Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Peter Ainsworth said last night: "This is a stark example of the perverse way in which the aviation industry works.
"It is utterly ludicrous that at a time of growing public concern about aviation's contribution to climate change, British Airways is operating ghost flights in order to keep its take-off and landing slots at airports."
A BA spokesman said that although the flights did not have any passengers, they carried extra freight.
He added: "The flights would have flown as part of the schedule anyway, so no extra emissions are being created.
"This is about minimising customer inconvenience wherever possible and ensuring that as many flights in our schedule operate as planned."
The weight of the passengers would increase the amount of fuel burned. They did everyone a favor.
Sheesh!
Excellent point.
LOL! Thats the spirit!
On the other hand one jet flying algore anywhere is a useless waste of fuel.
Carbon dioxide is made up of one atom of Carbon, atomic weight 12, and 2 atoms of Oxygen, atomic weight 16. So an atom with a weight of 12 oxidizes - adding another 32 units of weight - and reaches a molecular weight of 44. 117 * (44/12) gives 429. The math works because Oxygen is 16 times heavier than Hydrogen and even heavier than Carbon itself, and each Carbon picks up two of them.
I love it when non-airline people act like they know the industry. We fly empty all the time. We have to move planes into position for charters, we reposition planes for the STAR flights in the morning, and we move empty aircraft to cover for broken planes. The article probably neglects to mention that trip back was probably full and it was worth it to BA to ferry a crew and a plane to Hong Kong to save another cancel. I didnt read the whole article, I stopped when it got to Co2 emissions..
A few months ago, I reported to Pittsburgh because I was changing a Sunday evening flight (nearly 100% full) for a Sunday morning flight (only 40% full).
They wanted a $25 change fee for what was supposed to be a cheaper flight. I told them I was flying standby because I knew there were seats available. They told me it would be $25 or I wouldn't get on. When I paid the fee, the agent told me US Air often flew that flight nearly empty because they made more on the cargo than the passengers! Any passengers were considered bonus income on that early morning flight.
Another fake by the MSM. Give the impression that BA is flying empty planes around the sky just for giggles and to piss off Gaiea.
I'm sure the BA stockholders would have a few things to say about burning up all that jetfuel for no reason.
Cargo. That's a very good reason to fly.
Let BA decide whats worth it and whats not. If they figured it’s worth it to fly a 747 halfway around the globe with no revenue off the flight, so be it.
Hi Ron,
No offense, but I’m struggling with this. I understand your math and the ataomic weights. Maybe I’m mixing metaphors here, but I can weigh 140 tons of jet fuel on a set of scales. If I captured the emitted CO2, I’m not sure I could put it on a set of scales and see it measure 429 tons.
Maybe I’m oversimplifying this.
When I asked, why fly? They said they had 87 on the contuation flight to Miami.
Crazy business buring up tons of unnecessary fuel.
But they also will put lots of freight on flights like that. Pound per pound freight makes more money.
Oh, c’mon! If you run any kind of a transportation operation, you are going to have deadhead trips from time to time. Sometimes your vehicle needs to be someplace else, and you have nothing to take there.
If you object to this, you object to air travel altogether, because one follows the other.
If true, they are probably flying for the cargo capacity. Carrying dense cargo, the payload of a 747 can be taken up without a single passenger on board.
So I'm calling BS on this one. Enviro-weenies lie when convenient, because they are serving a greater truth, don'tcha know...
I think umgud’s point is that they divide by a different factor to convert from tons of fuel to tons of CO2.
Sing it, Brother!
Big shock there. A Green Weenie insisting that government control yet another industry. Were these young pups even around to see the waste and environmental abuse that went along with government control of industry in the former Soviet Union? Aeroflot was flying aircraft that burned ten times the fuel per passenger mile and would dump enough fuel through the engines that the ground would catch fire.
Environmentalism is about government control, not the environment. Damn watermelons.
BUMP!
When you burn it, you break those carbon-carbon and hydrogen-carbon bonds and combines each atom of carbon with two atoms of oxygen, which together have a relative weight of 32. Now you've gone from a relative weight of 14 (-CH2-) to a relative weight of 44 (CO2) (yeah, I know there are CH3 in there and other combinations, but this is a ball park estimate). Multiply the weight of the jet fuel times the fraction of it that is carbon (say, at least 90%, so use 0.9). Then multiply that in turn times 44/12 (~ 2.44). That gives you the mass of CO2 that is generated from burning a given mass of carbon.
Theoretically, you could actually freeze that into dry ice and weigh it. You get the great increase in mass because the weight of the oxygen attached to the carbon is more than 10 times the weight of the hydrogen whose place it's taking.
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