Tag Archives: flights
China ‘Will Not Accept’ Carbon Tax On EU Flights: Report
Sunday, 19.05.2013, 11:58 ©AFP China will not pay for CO2 emissions by its airlines on flights within Europe, a top civil aviation official reportedly said after the European Commission warned eight Chinese firms face fines for nonpayment. The world’s second largest economy “will not accept any unilateral and compulsory market measures”, Yan Mingchi, deputy director-general of the legal and regulation department at the Civil Aviation Administration of China, told an aviation forum in Beijing Friday, the China Daily newspaper reported. He said “airlines in developing countries should be provided with financial and technological support in their efforts at coping with the effects of climate change”. The European Commission said Friday eight Chinese and two Indian airlines face fines totalling 2.4 million euros ($3.1 million) for not paying for their greenhouse gas emissions on flights within the bloc. It said member states could fine the firms, including Chinese flag carrier Air China, under the terms of the EU’s Emissions Trading System, which is designed to cut the carbon dioxide pollution blamed for global warming. In a highly controversial move last year, the EU added airlines to the ETS regime, sparking howls of protest from the United States and China, which said the move breached international law. The EC said almost all airlines had fully complied with their ETS obligations, which were consistent with international law and conventions. However it said eight Chinese carriers, including China Airlines, China Eastern and China Southern, alongside Air India and India’s Jet Airways were at fault. The eight Chinese airlines were liable for fines of some 2.4 million euros combined while the two Indian groups owed much less, at 30,000 euros. For more information see: http://en.tengrinews.kz/markets/China-will-not-accept-carbon-tax-on-EU-flights-report–19481/ Use of the Tengrinews English materials must be accompanied by a hyperlink to en.Tengrinews.kz Continue reading
NASA Clears Biofuel-Powered Jets for Takeoff
Environmental Leader 01/05/13 NASA researchers say commercial airlines can safely fly using plant-based biofuel, following successful test flights in California. The flights studied the effects of alternate biofuel on engine performance, emissions and aircraft-generated contrails at altitudes typically flown by commercial airliners . The Alternative Fuel Effects on Contrails and Cruise Emissions (ACCESS) experiment involved flying a NASA Dryden Flight Research Center DC-8 airplane as high as 39,000 feet while an instrumented HU-25C Guardian aircraft, based at NASA’s Langley Research Center, trailed behind at distances ranging from 300 feet to more than 10 miles. The team measured exhaust composition and contrail characteristics depending on fuel type, plume duration and atmospheric conditions. During the flights, the DC-8’s four CFM56 engines were powered by conventional JP-8 jet fuel, or a 50-50 blend of JP-8 and an alternative fuel of hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids produced from camelina plant oil. More than a dozen instruments mounted on the Guardian jet characterized the soot, gases and ice particles streaming from the DC-8. Bruce Anderson, a senior research scientist at Langley who worked on the project, tells the Associated Press that these fuels are “quite acceptable” for use in commercial jets. The latest test flights follow a pair of alternative aviation fuel experiment studies conducted in 2009 and 2011. Ground-based instruments measured the DC-8’s exhaust emissions as the aircraft burned alternative fuels while parked on a ramp in California. A second phase of ACCESS flights is planned for 2014. It will build upon learned from this year’s flights and include a more extensive set of measurements, NASA says. The ACCESS study is a joint project involving researchers at Dryden, NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland and NASA Langley. Last month, the USDA extended for five years its agreement to work with the FAA and commercial aviation partners , including Boeing and industry trade group Airlines for America, to help develop a viable biofuel for the aviation industry. Continue reading
United Airlines Business Class Boeing B767 Lie-Flats San Francisco to London via Chicago 2011
Here is my trip report of a trip I did in business class in 2011. I was able to upgrade to business class with my miles. It was a nice trip! I was able to co… Continue reading
