23 December 2007

Airline carbon emissions calculator takes account of aircraft types

My attention was recently drawn to an Airline Carbon Emissions Calculator from Travel Analytics that not only takes account of the aircraft type being used but also, among other factors, the seating configuration of the airline you might be flying on and its typical load factors.

Fuel burn by aircraft type information comes from the 2006 version of the EMEP/CORINAIR Emission Inventory Guidebook (see Group 8). This data includes both LTO and cruise fuel burn rates.

The calculations are not perfect - for example, I suspect that it does not take into account indirect routings caused by airspace restrictions or typical wind patterns that can lead to significant directional flight time differences - but it is a significant improvement over some of the simplistic calculators that are available.

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