Airline

Posts Tagged ‘Airline’

Virgin Aims For Most Sustainable Airline Meals

Posted by admin on April 4th, 2013

Virgin Atlantic has teamed up with the Sustainable Restaurant Association to offer its passengers the world’s greenest in-flight meals.

Already, the Sustainable Restaurant Association has helped well over 1,200 UK restaurants to source sustainable food supplies and operate more eco-efficiently. Now, it’s doing the same for one of the UK’s major commercial airlines and, according to Virgin officials, the tie-up is a world first within the air travel industry.

In months ahead, the Sustainable Restaurant Association will give star ratings to Virgin Atlantic caterers the world over. On completion of these Virgin airline meal ratings, the association will then advise the carrier on how it can improve.

Virgin In-Flight Meals

The ultimate goal is for Virgin’s in-flight meals to be the most sustainable offered by any airline and it’s highly conceivable that, following its lead, other carriers will also now start evaluating the calibre of the food they serve.

Given Virgin Atlantic’s global presence, this sustainable food quest involves factors not associated with traditional restaurants, which typically use a trusted and, above all, localised supply network. In Virgin’s and other airlines’ cases, global food production trends, especially growing seasons, have much more of an impact.

“There are catering facilities in some regions where running water is in low supply”, a Virgin spokeswoman was quoted by Business Green as having said. “Countries on either side of the equator will have different seasons and produce different products.”

Sustainable Virgin Airline Meals

“Our adventurous spirit means we’re not afraid to push boundaries in following our sustainability agenda which is why we approached the Sustainable Restaurant Association to work together on this project”, stated customer experience director, Reuben Arnold, in a press release on the sustainable Virgin airline meals.

“Value for money and quality of product are of course hugely important factors, but our passengers now rightly demand that we look beyond that and ensure we are making the most sustainable choices. The SRA ratings will allow us to understand how we and our global suppliers are performing on this front, and how to work closely together to drive improvements.”

Enviro News – News

EU hails airline emissions tax success

Posted by admin on May 15th, 2012

Erin Hale and
Damian Carrington

China Airlines : China Aims to Produce 12 Mln Tonnes of Bio-Liquid Fuel Annually

Chinese airlines were among the few flouting their obligation to submit emissions data. Photograph: Nelson Ching/Getty Images

More than 99% of all major global airlines have complied with the first step of Europe‘s controversial scheme to charge them for their carbon emissions.

The inclusion of aviation in the European Union‘s emissions trading system (ETS) from the start of 2012 caused uproar from airlines in more than 20 countries including the US, China, Russia and Japan, but virtually all submitted the required baseline emissions data for 2011. Only eight Chinese airlines and two Indian ones did not comply by the 31 March deadline.

Connie Hedegaard, the European commissioner for climate action, said: “To put these figures into perspective, these [10] airlines represent less than 3% of total aviation emissions. So the bottom line is more than 1,200 airlines from all other countries but China and India have complied: implementation of the law is there.”

EU member states have contacted the Indian and Chinese airlines to remind them of their obligations, said Hedegaard, and extended the deadline until mid-June.

The inclusion of international airlines in the ETS scheme prompted failed legal attempts to kill the move. Subsequently, a so-called “coalition of the unwilling” has threatened to refuse to pay the carbon tax or to retaliate against Europe. China has threatened to drop aircraft orders from Europe’s Airbus.

Small fines for non-compliance could be levied now by EU member states and, in the future, airlines that do not comply could face fines of $ 128 per tonne of CO2 emitted or be banned from European airports.

Hedegaard said the EU was currently negotiating with China on whether equivalent measures could be put in place by the Chinese authorities, which the EU would find acceptable.

Under the EU’s cap and trade system, major polluters are given allowances to emit greenhouse gases. If the company exceeds its allowances, it has to buy extra permits, but if it cuts its emissions it can sell the allowances. Over time, the total number of allowances is scaled back, in order to cut emissions and tackle global warming, but the ETS currently has a large oversupply of permits due to over-allocation and the reduction of economic activity caused by the economic crisis.

Initially, most of the permits are given to the airlines free of charge. The EC estimates the ETS will cost Chinese airlines less than €2.5m a year and Indian airlines €1m a year, an “insignificant amount”, according to an EC source. The collection of 2011 aviation emissions data will be used to set a benchmark. Next year, the EU will distribute allowances equivalent to 97% of the previous year’s emissions, and then 95% for 2013-2020.

Hedegaard said she was happy with the overall progress made so far by the ETS: “The EU ETS emissions continued in 2011 to decrease: it decreased at 2% at the same time that we actually had economic growth. It shows once again that emissions reductions and economic growth can go together. It also shows that the ETS is actually delivering results.”

However, Damien Morris, senior policy adviser at the carbon trading thinktank Sandbag, said: “While we welcome signs of a less carbon-intensive economic recovery in Europe, Hedegaard’s attribution of this abatement to the ETS is highly optimistic. The reduction happened in spite of, not because of, the EU ETS, and will serve to exacerbate the massive oversupply of carbon allowances that threaten to haunt the system until 2020. Urgent intervention to reduce the supply of allowances is required if the EU ETS is to help drive a cost-efficient transition to a low-carbon European economy.”

Environment news, comment and analysis from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk

New Rules to Protect Airline Passengers

Posted by admin on February 14th, 2012

DOT 08-12
Monday, January 23, 2012

New regulations going into effect this week will help ensure that consumers are treated fairly when they travel by air, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said today. Among the new provisions, part of the airline consumer rule issued by the U.S. Department of Transportation in April 2011, are requirements that airlines and ticket agents include all mandatory taxes and fees in published airfares and that they disclose baggage fees to consumers buying tickets.

“Airline passengers have rights, and they should be able to expect fair and reasonable treatment when booking a trip and when they fly,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said. “The new passenger protections taking effect this week are a continuation of our effort to help air travelers receive the respect they deserve.”

Also beginning this week, passengers will be able to hold a reservation without payment, or cancel a booking without penalty, for 24 hours after the reservation is made, if they make the reservation one week or more prior to a flight’s departure date. In addition, airlines will be required to promptly notify passengers of flight delays of over 30 minutes, as well as flight cancellations and diversions, and they will generally be prohibited from increasing the price of passengers’ ticket after it is bought.

The new rules also will make it easier for passengers to determine the full price they will have to pay for air transportation prior to travel. Currently, airlines and ticket agents are allowed to publish ads that list government-imposed taxes and fees separately from the advertised fare, as long as these taxes and fees are assessed on a per-passenger basis. However, sometimes the notice of these taxes and fees is not obvious to consumers. Under the new requirements, all mandatory taxes and fees must be included together in the advertised fare. The advertising provision takes effect Jan. 26, 2012 while all of the other consumer protections go into effect on Jan. 24 of this year.

In addition, airlines and ticket agents will be required to disclose baggage fees to consumers when they book a flight online. The first screen containing a fare quotation for a specific itinerary must show if there will be additional baggage fees, and inform consumers where they can go to see these fees. Information on baggage fees also must be included on all e-ticket confirmations, and for most trips the same baggage allowances and fees must apply throughout a passenger’s journey.

The new requirements are the final provisions to become effective from the Department’s most recent airline consumer rule. A number of new measures required by the rule took effect on Aug. 23, 2011, including requirements that airlines refund baggage fees if bags are lost and provide increased compensation to passengers bumped from oversold flights.

Also beginning last August, the Department set a four-hour time limit on tarmac delays for all international flights at U.S. airports, and extended the three-hour tarmac delay limit for domestic flights to smaller airports. It also required additional airlines to report their lengthy tarmac delays to DOT.

The Department is looking at other airline consumer protection measures for a possible future rulemaking, including requiring that all airline optional fees be disclosed wherever consumers can book a flight, strengthening disclosure of code-share flights, and requiring additional carriers to file on-time performance reports.

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Contact: Bill Mosley • Tel: (202) 366-4570

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