Environment

First-class passengers leave bigger carbon footprint

by Barry ORegan | February 9, 2009 at 06:15 am

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Barry Artiste Op/Ed

Boy, someone has way too much time on his hands to come up with this little tidbit of information, considering the Carbon Footprint and all the paperwork in determining First Class Passengers are Big Time Polluters!

Perhaps he should concentrate on much bigger issues, such as media print, I am sure that takes out far more trees than First Class Passengers with take up a measly 10 percent of an entire plane!

Turns out there's an environmental cost to the extra leg room, free wine, warm towels and hefty price tag that comes with first-class air travel, according to new research.

The Business Travel Research Centre at Cranfield University in the United Kingdom found that the carbon emissions level from first class may be more than double of those of passengers in the economy section.

As part of their "real estate calculation," they considered the average space occupied by first-class passengers and the actual load factors in both premium and economy cabins on transatlantic flights between North America and Europe.

Keith Mason, director of the centre, said another variable could make the carbon footprint between coach and business classes even greater, but the research team didn't have access to the data to include in their analysis.

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eastvanray

at 13:23 on February 9th, 2009

Airlines should provide passengers the option of buying a carbon offset credit at the time they book their fare. That way ALL passengers (first class or coach) would be able to travel guilt-free.