IBA, an award-winning aviation advisory and analytics company, published its latest monthly Aviation Carbon Emissions Index in association with KPMG. This month’s index also includes a spotlight on CO2 efficiency of popular aircraft engines fitted to wide-body and narrow-body aircraft.
New data found that CO2 emissions in the commercial aviation industry averaged 144.2 grams of CO2 per-seat per-mile in February 2022, with overall carbon intensity per-seat increasing by just under 0.3%. The marginal growth in these figures is driven by a slight reduction in operations from newer generation aircraft in February 2022, and by a shorter stage length from key contributors (which increases emissions on a per-seat per-mile basis).
February 2022 saw a significant reduction in both domestic and international flights globally, with a reduction of 9% in domestic flights and an 8% reduction in international flights from January 2022 to February 2022. The overall reduction in flight volumes is largely driven by a drop in international flights departing from the Europe and CIS, Asia Pacific and North American regions.
Aircraft Efficiency Spotlight
The global share of emissions by aircraft type remains largely unchanged for February 2022, with the ratios of highest contributing aircraft remaining very similar when compared to January 2022. The 8% drop in international and 9% drop in domestic flights cited in IBA’s summary analysis drove a drop in overall CO2 emissions across the passenger market. It is likely that a combination of factors are contributing to the drop in flight volumes. Recent airspace closures following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, combined with continued localised lockdowns in some regions are likely to cause uncertainty in the market. This is coupled with a global cost of living increase resulting in some passengers being less willing to travel during such significant global volatility.
The emissions share of the Boeing 737-800 increased by 0.4%. This was the most significant monthly change in emissions by aircraft model. The aircraft with the largest reduction in emissions share in this period was the Airbus A350-900. These figures are fluid, and small increases and decreases should be expected month-on-month. IBA expects the aircraft efficiency spotlight to be influenced by the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, initially manifesting itself as a larger than usual fluctuation in IBA’s next monthly figures.Lessor Efficiency SpotlightJackson Square Aviation remains at the top of IBA’s Lessor Efficiency Spotlight for February 2022. CO2 per-seat per-mile figures have increased on average by 1 gram per-mile across the board within IBA’s lessor index. This is largely influenced by the overall utilisation of assets within the lessors’ portfolios. IBA has seen an increase in CO2 intensity across all of the top lessors throughout February 2022. No major fleet changes or exits of note have occurred in the past month.
Airline Efficiency Spotlight
February 2022 sees Czech low-cost carrier Smartwings enter IBA’s Airline Efficiency Spotlight for the first time. Italian airline Neos also joins IBA’s ranking, operating a mixture of low-cost medium and long-haul routes using a fleet of Boeing 737-800, Boeing 737 MAX 8 and Boeing 787-9 aircraft. The Boeing 787 aircraft in the Neos fleet were largely sourced from Norwegian’s long-haul low-cost fleet. The high-density configuration of these aircraft contributes to their overall efficiency per-seat per-mile.
Spotlight: Engine Efficiency
In this month’s extra spotlight feature, IBA have benchmarked and compared a selection of popular engines fitted to the most common aircraft in the global fleet mix. IBA has identified the most efficient engine by CO2 emissions per-seat per-mile as the Pratt and Whitney PW1127G Geared Turbo Fan ‘P&W GTF’ fitted to the Airbus A320neo.
IBA’s engine CO2 efficiency performance comparisons highlight relatively slim differences when comparing powerplants operating in the current generation narrowbody market. The IAE engine family holds a small CO2 efficiency advantage when compared to the CFM56 engine, which commonly power Airbus A320ceo and Boeing 737NG aircraft respectively.
Larger efficiency trends can be observed when comparing new generation engines to older generation engines fitted to the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 families (the two most popular aircraft types). A key example is the Pratt and Whitney PW1127G Geared Turbo Fan (P&W GTF) engine, which is 16% more efficient than the previous generation International Aero Engines (IAE) V2500 series engine.
Looking at newer generation engines, the P&W GTF holds a slight advantage over the CFM LEAP-1A26 when fitted on the Airbus A320neo in terms of CO2 efficiency. New generation engine developments and key learnings from the previous generation of engines are crucial to efficiency improvements in the A320neo family.
The selection of engine models is typically dictated by the relationships between the airline (or lessor) and the engine manufacturer. As engine technology improves and more new generation aircraft are brought online, IBA anticipates further overall efficiency improvements from newer engines will contribute to the efficiency of the global fleet.
Chris Brown, head of Strategy at KPMG, said: “As we’d expect, the carbon intensity of competitor engine options on the same generation of plane type differs modestly when compared with older generations. And yet the difference within a single generation is still around 3-5% in many cases. This is surprisingly high when we consider that over the whole Jan. 2018 to Jan. 2022 period, the fleet-wide CO2 per-seat per-mile fell at under 2% per year.”
“Clearly fuel prices will now be more topical than ever given the geopolitical response to Russia. And yet the environmental scrutiny on aviation won’t let up. It would be tempting to think ‘If only SAF production had ramped up 15 years ago’ – that we might already see falling prices from an available, alternative supply. The short-term temptation in the current context might be to resist any further policy levers around SAF, and yet that is exactly what is required to give producers the certainty of demand, in turn driving the required volumes and price fall. This realistically involves both EU-style blend percentage mandates, as well as California-style incentives on production.”
