Its Back Against the Wall, Airline Industry Looks to Come Clean

These are tough times for any industry that burns a lot of fossil fuel or emits a lot of carbon dioxide, and the air travel business does both. The airlines never gave it much thought before, but with sky-high oil prices and mounting concern about global warming threatening not just their bottom line, but their existence, they’re getting serious about reducing the industry’s carbon footprint. “They’re definitely in bad shape,” says John Scholle, an economist with Global Insight. “And going forward, things look bleak.” It is against this backdrop that executives from the U.S. commercial aviation industry gather later this week in Washington D.C. to plot a new course. The Air Transport World Eco-Aviation conference marks the first time the industry has come together on such a large scale to talk about the environment. The conference underscores the severity of the issues facing commercial aviation and the need to begin addressing them collectively and quickly.

Read the story from WIRED | No Comments | Posted June 18, 2008 at 6:05 PM by Sam Bear