How this major airline is working to be carbon neutral by 2050

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It’s no secret that flying is a carbon-intensive activity. It takes thousands of gallons of jet fuel to propel a plane across a continent or an ocean.  
But the airline industry is committed to reducing its carbon footprint. By 2050, the industry has promised to achieve net-zero emissions. Getting there will require new technologies and a much higher number of new-generation aircraft in the global fleet.  
Changes like that take time to implement, but there are things airlines can do – and in many cases are already doing – to rein in their emissions. 
“If we want to still be able to operate in future in this carbon-constrained world, we have to be able to decarbonize this business,” Carrie Harris, head of sustainability at British Airways, told USA TODAY. 
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Harris said BA is planning on renewing its fleet in the coming decades and has made investments in sustainable aviation fuel startups. But those longer-term plans are bolstered by things like flight planning software that helps optimize fuel usage, and changes in ground operations meant to reduce emissions generated at airports. 
“Because our carbon footprint is so large, what can initially seem like a small step can amount up to tens of thousands of tons of CO2 savings over the years,” Harris said. British Airways’ emissions calculator suggests the average passenger’s carbon footprint on a round-trip flight from London to New York is 56 kilograms in economy class or 175 kilograms in business class. 
Here are some of the things BA and other airlines are doing to improve their environmental impact with the technologies already available, and what experts say can be done to continue boosting efficiency. 
Harris said being more environmentally conscious was part of a broader culture change at British Airways, which included her appointment as the airline’s first head of sustainability in 2020 to signal its commitment to being greener. It included tweaks to the way pilots are trained to think about and analyze their flight plans. 
“We’ve got a new software system that gives pilots information about the headwinds they’re likely to experience so they can adjust their flight plan accordingly,” she said. More efficient planning means not only finding the routes with the most favorable winds, but considering things like altitude and speed, and even optimizing ascent and descent paths to reduce fuel burn. 
“Just like when you’re driving a car if you go lightly on the gas, you save more fuel,” Harris said. 
Max Z. Li, an assistant professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Michigan, said many airlines are taking similar steps to improve the efficiency of their flying. 
“Instead of having you fly more inefficient trajectories, especially where (air traffic control is) giving you a lot of manual directions or radar vectors, to sort of use small slow-downs and speed-ups in your speed to make sure that you are on track,” he said. “Those would be some of the main flight operations-based improvements.” 
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Airlines can also reduce their carbon footprints by making small changes to the way they operate on the ground, including leaving planes plugged into power at the gate as much as possible and only using one engine to taxi as a way to cut down on fuel use. 
“Operating around the airfield, we try and plug the aircraft in on stand, so when they’re on stand, instead of burning aviation fuel, they’re plugged into renewable electricity,” Harris said. “When the pilot is then taxiing out, they will only start up one of the engines” until about five minutes before takeoff.  
Li added that even tweaking the timing of a pushback from the gate can make a difference. 
“If, at the moment, there’s a large line of aircraft waiting to depart, it may be worth waiting a few more minutes at the gate with your engines off than waiting on the taxiway with your engines up and running,” he said. 
Many airports worldwide have also been working to electrify their ground vehicles or moving to more eco-friendly fuel sources as another way to cut emissions. 
“It’s easy to keep thinking about the aircraft of the future, but we’ve got technology now. We’ve got electric vehicles, we can use biodiesel instead of fossil diesel,” Harris said. “Flight crews, ground crews, cabin crews and passengers can see this equipment moving around the airfield.” 
Of course, these kinds of operational tweaks are just a start to getting airlines toward their carbon-neutral goals. But Harris said British Airways has seen carbon efficiency gains of 10% since 2019 thanks to improved operations and planned fleet renewals.  
“We’re still recovering from the pandemic. The business year on year is growing, but per passenger, the carbon intensity is going down,” she said.
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U.S. airlines are also working on improving their carbon footprints. Among other initiatives, United Airlines announced it would start using SAF at its Chicago O’Hare hub. American said it uses new software in its ground operations to optimize taxi paths for its planes at many airports. And Delta said a combination of new airplane deliveries and retrofits to its existing aircraft will help cut down its fuel use and keep the airline on its path to net zero by 2050.
Still, more work is needed – including ramping up the production of sustainable aviation fuel – to make flying more sustainable in the long term. 
“There’s a lot more to come in this space and it’s very exciting to see this gaining momentum,” Harris said. 
Zach Wichter is a travel reporter for USA TODAY based in New York. You can reach him at [email protected].