SAS flies slower to save fuel and lower carbon emissions.
Well, when I read this headline, conflicting views sprang to mind.
Firstly of course, being an Englishman with no sense of irony, I immediately leapt to my feet and saluted my queen and her armed forces.
Then I faltered slightly, and thought, if a crack team of SAS marines were being air dropped into some war-torn despotic state, surely, speed is of the essence, to ensure that the paras can be in and out again with time for a cup of tea a mere hours later.
And of course, well, I thought the SAS were used relatively infrequently – as a last resort. Surely the carbon savings are going to be miniscule.
Also, come to think of it, is it politic to announce slower-moving troops to the enemy…?
As you can tell, my mind by this time was racing with all the possibilities, all the negatives surrounding this piece of news. And I still hadn’t clicked on the link!
So I did so to find the opening paragraph reads:
“Scandinavian airline SAS is flying slower to save on sky-rocketing fuel costs and curb emissions of carbon dioxide in a new push to green up its image.”
Oh.
Oh, I see.
Relief all round I’d say. The full story can be found here detailing real positives surrounding Scandinavia’s decision to try and get a grip on air travel’s dreadful CO2 emissions.
Please also read: Fly Me to The Moon, But not via Heathrow – written by EcoWorldly’s Zurich correspondent, Mark Seal. Particularly relevant as it details the UK’s own lacklustre approach to the skies.
(I also found it interesting to learn about the story behind the image I decided to use. Rather fun and informative link here.)
Image credit: ladyb at Flickr under a Creative Commons license
Nice post Pem!
On the whole the aviation industry have done a good job over the past decades at reducing emissions. I think the improvement is something like 76% – a figure that few other industries could match.
Of course this is driven largely by the fact that fuel is their biggest expense – if it wasn’t then very little R&D would have gone into fuel efficiency.
If other industries could be motivated to make such improvements over the coming years then we would be half way towards solving our biggest environmental issues..
Great post and very funny! For US-based readers, SAS = Special Air Service.