IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/appene/v164y2016icp553-562.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Aircraft cost index and the future of carbon emissions from air travel

Author

Listed:
  • Edwards, Holly A.
  • Dixon-Hardy, Darron
  • Wadud, Zia

Abstract

Air travel accounts for 2% of global CO2 emissions and this proportion is set to grow in the future. There are currently no large scale solutions to drastically reduce the industry’s dependence on oil. Therefore, airlines are looking to use a basket of measures to reduce fuel consumption. Optimisation of the use of cost index (CI) could be a valuable addition to this. By balancing time-dependent costs with the cost of fuel, it controls the speed of the aircraft to achieve the most economic flight time. This has a direct impact on the CO2 emissions from the aircraft, with higher speeds resulting in higher fuel consumption. The aim of this study is to assess the impact that CI has on CO2 emissions for six different aircraft models on a flight-by-flight basis and to evaluate how the CI could be affected by future impacts on the industry for a representative aircraft. Results show that a range of representative CI values for different aircraft models exist and suggest that the maximum benefit for optimising CI values occurs for long range flights. The average saving in CO2 emissions is 1%. Results show that time-related costs have the greatest effect on the optimum CI values, particularly delay costs. On the fuel side of the equation it is notable that a carbon price resulting from the implementation of a market based mechanism has little impact on the optimum CI and only reduces CO2 emissions by 0.01% in this case. The largest savings in CO2 emissions result from the use of biofuels, with reductions of between 9% and 44% for 10% and 50% blends respectively. This study also highlights the need for further research into crew and maintenance costs, cumulative costs and delay induced by congestion and climate change events, as well as policy considerations to ensure that there is a reduction in CO2 emissions. The study concludes that CI should be seen as a valuable tool in both helping to reduce CO2 emissions, as well to assess the impact of future events on the industry.

Suggested Citation

  • Edwards, Holly A. & Dixon-Hardy, Darron & Wadud, Zia, 2016. "Aircraft cost index and the future of carbon emissions from air travel," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 553-562.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:164:y:2016:i:c:p:553-562
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.11.058
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261915015081
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.11.058?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carlsson, Fredrik & Hammar, Henrik, 2002. "Incentive-based regulation of CO2 emissions from international aviation," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 8(6), pages 365-372.
    2. Kopsch, Fredrik, 2012. "Aviation and the EU Emissions Trading Scheme—Lessons learned from previous emissions trading schemes," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 770-773.
    3. Cook, Andrew & Tanner, Graham & Williams, Victoria & Meise, Gerhard, 2009. "Dynamic cost indexing – Managing airline delay costs," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 26-35.
    4. Nygren, Emma & Aleklett, Kjell & Höök, Mikael, 2009. "Aviation fuel and future oil production scenarios," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(10), pages 4003-4010, October.
    5. Clive Lawson, 2012. "Aviation lock-in and emissions trading," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 36(5), pages 1221-1243.
    6. Swan, William M. & Adler, Nicole, 2006. "Aircraft trip cost parameters: A function of stage length and seat capacity," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 105-115, March.
    7. Gelhausen, Marc C. & Berster, Peter & Wilken, Dieter, 2013. "Do airport capacity constraints have a serious impact on the future development of air traffic?," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 3-13.
    8. Gegg, Per & Budd, Lucy & Ison, Stephen, 2014. "The market development of aviation biofuel: Drivers and constraints," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 34-40.
    9. M. Selim Aktürk & Alper Atamtürk & Sinan Gürel, 2014. "Aircraft Rescheduling with Cruise Speed Control," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 62(4), pages 829-845, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Qiu, Rui & Xu, Jiuping & Zeng, Ziqiang & Chen, Xin & Wang, Yinhai, 2022. "Carbon tax policy-induced air travel carbon emission reduction and biofuel usage in China," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    2. Jakovljević, Ivan & Mijailović, Radomir & Mirosavljević, Petar, 2018. "Carbon dioxide emission during the life cycle of turbofan aircraft," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 866-875.
    3. Khan, Waqar Ahmed & Chung, Sai-Ho & Ma, Hoi-Lam & Liu, Shi Qiang & Chan, Ching Yuen, 2019. "A novel self-organizing constructive neural network for estimating aircraft trip fuel consumption," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 72-96.
    4. Cui, Qiang & Wei, Yi-Ming & Li, Ye, 2016. "Exploring the impacts of the EU ETS emission limits on airline performance via the Dynamic Environmental DEA approach," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 984-994.
    5. Dobruszkes, Frédéric & Peeters, Didier, 2019. "The magnitude of detours faced by commercial flights: A global assessment," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 1-1.
    6. Zhou, Wenji & Wang, Tao & Yu, Yadong & Chen, Dingjiang & Zhu, Bing, 2016. "Scenario analysis of CO2 emissions from China’s civil aviation industry through 2030," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 100-108.
    7. Wang, Yu & Sun, Huimin & Lin, Yiming & Cui, Qiang & Shen, Yanxin & Li, Xin, 2024. "An interval-valued estimation method of aircraft route carbon emission: A function of aircraft seat capacity and route flight time," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 294(C).
    8. Goldberg, C. & Nalianda, D. & Sethi, V. & Pilidis, P. & Singh, R. & Kyprianidis, K., 2018. "Assessment of an energy-efficient aircraft concept from a techno-economic perspective," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 221(C), pages 229-238.
    9. Donateo, Teresa & Ficarella, Antonio & Spedicato, Luigi & Arista, Alessandro & Ferraro, Marco, 2017. "A new approach to calculating endurance in electric flight and comparing fuel cells and batteries," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 187(C), pages 807-819.
    10. Frédéric Dobruszkes & Didier Peeters, 2019. "The magnitude of detours faced by commercial flights: A global assessment," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/293811, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    11. Rui, Zhenhua & Cui, Kehang & Wang, Xiaoqing & Chun, Jung-Hoon & Li, Yuwei & Zhang, Zhien & Lu, Jun & Chen, Gang & Zhou, Xiyu & Patil, Shirish, 2018. "A comprehensive investigation on performance of oil and gas development in Nigeria: Technical and non-technical analyses," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 666-680.
    12. Eufrásio, Ana Beatriz R. & Eller, Rogéria A.G. & Oliveira, Alessandro V.M., 2021. "Are on-time performance statistics worthless? An empirical study of the flight scheduling strategies of Brazilian airlines," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    13. Arthit Champeecharoensuk & Shobhakar Dhakal & Nuwong Chollacoop, 2023. "Climate Change Mitigation in Thailand’s Domestic Aviation: Mitigation Options Analysis towards 2050," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(20), pages 1-20, October.
    14. Lyu, Chen & Liu, Xiaoman & Wang, Zhen & Yang, Lu & Liu, Hao & Yang, Nan & Xu, Shaodong & Cao, Libin & Zhang, Zhe & Pang, Lingyun & Zhang, Li & Cai, Bofeng, 2023. "An emissions inventory using flight information reveals the long-term changes of aviation CO2 emissions in China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 262(PB).
    15. Yang, Yuanchao & Gao, Zichen, 2019. "Power optimization of the environmental control system for the civil more electric aircraft," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 196-206.
    16. Achenbach, Anna & Spinler, Stefan, 2018. "Prescriptive analytics in airline operations: Arrival time prediction and cost index optimization for short-haul flights," Operations Research Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 5(C), pages 265-279.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Qiu, Rui & Hou, Shuhua & Meng, Zhiyi, 2021. "Low carbon air transport development trends and policy implications based on a scientometrics-based data analysis system," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 1-10.
    2. Wang, Wei-Cheng & Liu, Yu-Cheng & Nugroho, Rusdan Aditya Aji, 2022. "Techno-economic analysis of renewable jet fuel production: The comparison between Fischer-Tropsch synthesis and pyrolysis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 239(PA).
    3. Douglas, Ian, 2019. "Do the Gulf airlines distort the level playing field?," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 72-79.
    4. Yilmaz, Nadir & Atmanli, Alpaslan, 2017. "Sustainable alternative fuels in aviation," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 140(P2), pages 1378-1386.
    5. Hamdan, Sadeque & Jouini, Oualid & Cheaitou, Ali & Jemai, Zied & Granberg, Tobias Andersson & Josefsson, Billy, 2022. "Air traffic flow management under emission policies: Analyzing the impact of sustainable aviation fuel and different carbon prices," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 14-40.
    6. João P. Pita & Cynthia Barnhart & António P. Antunes, 2013. "Integrated Flight Scheduling and Fleet Assignment Under Airport Congestion," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(4), pages 477-492, November.
    7. Berta, Nathalie, 2015. "Prix versus quantités : les contorsions du marché du carbone européen," Revue de la Régulation - Capitalisme, institutions, pouvoirs, Association Recherche et Régulation, vol. 18.
    8. Koo, Tay T.R. & Hossein Rashidi, Taha & Park, Jin-Woo & Wu, Cheng-Lung & Tseng, Wen-Chun, 2017. "The effect of enhanced international air access on the demand for peripheral tourism destinations: Evidence from air itinerary choice behaviour of Korean visitors to Australia," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 116-129.
    9. Smirti Ryerson, Megan & Hansen, Mark, 2009. "Capturing the Impact of Fuel Price on Jet Aircraft Operating Costs with Engineering and Econometric Models," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt43v655js, University of California Transportation Center.
    10. Givoni, Moshe & Rietveld, Piet, 2009. "Airline's choice of aircraft size - Explanations and implications," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 43(5), pages 500-510, June.
    11. Thowayeb H. Hassan & Abu Elnasr E. Sobaih & Amany E. Salem, 2021. "Factors Affecting the Rate of Fuel Consumption in Aircrafts," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-16, July.
    12. Ko, Young Dae, 2019. "The airfare pricing and seat allocation problem in full-service carriers and subsidiary low-cost carriers," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 92-102.
    13. Adeline Montlaur & Luis Delgado & César Trapote-Barreira, 2021. "Analytical Models for CO 2 Emissions and Travel Time for Short-to-Medium-Haul Flights Considering Available Seats," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-23, September.
    14. Winchester, Niven & Malina, Robert & Staples, Mark D. & Barrett, Steven R.H., 2015. "The impact of advanced biofuels on aviation emissions and operations in the U.S," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 482-491.
    15. Chen, Lihong & Ren, Jingzheng, 2018. "Multi-attribute sustainability evaluation of alternative aviation fuels based on fuzzy ANP and fuzzy grey relational analysis," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 176-186.
    16. Gayle, Philip G. & Yimga, Jules O., 2018. "How much do consumers really value air travel on-time performance, and to what extent are airlines motivated to improve their on-time performance?," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 14(C), pages 31-41.
    17. Naz Yeti̇moğlu, Yücel & Selim Aktürk, M., 2021. "Aircraft and passenger recovery during an aircraft’s unexpected unavailability," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    18. Arunodaya Raj Mishra & Pratibha Rani & Fausto Cavallaro & Ibrahim M. Hezam, 2023. "An IVIF-Distance Measure and Relative Closeness Coefficient-Based Model for Assessing the Sustainable Development Barriers to Biofuel Enterprises in India," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-22, February.
    19. Frédéric Dobruszkes & Didier Peeters, 2019. "The magnitude of detours faced by commercial flights: A global assessment," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/293811, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    20. Gudmundsson, Sveinn & Paleari, Stefano & Redondi, Renato, 2014. "Spillover effects of the development constraints in London Heathrow Airport," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 64-74.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:164:y:2016:i:c:p:553-562. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.