Making the Skies Greener

One of my previous posts was in regards to InCycle technology and its benefits for Alaska Airlines operations. The new cup is allowing for reductions in energy use in multiple areas, especially in the area of weight. The most efficient way to reduce environmental impact in the skies is to reduce the overall weight of the aircraft that is being fueled. These new cups have allowed them to significantly reduce the weight of each aircraft, creating a situation where they simply do not need to use the fuel. What I am learning in the airline industry is that it is extremely difficult to reduce the impact a company has on the environment, but the most effective method to do so today is by reducing weight. Alaska has implemented a number of initiatives to help reduce their footprint over the past few years, some of them are: 

• Reducing weight by making catering carts more efficient, boarding less water on aircraft, removing unneeded insulation blankets, and replacing heavy pilot flight bags and paper manuals with iPads. 
• Keeping a young, fuel efficient fleet and always looking for more innovative designs to alter planes into more fuel efficient aircraft. Recently, they have adopted the use of winglets on the edge of the wing which increases fuel efficiency by 3-5% and can save up to 100,000 gallons of fuel per plane each year (WOW, that is a lot less fuel, but the somehow the fares continue to rise)
• Implementing 'Greener Skies over Seattle" has led to technology advances across their network, not only when flying in and out of Seattle. From this they have developed Required Navigation Performance  (RNP) technology which is leading the industry in GPS enabled navigation. This allows them to fly the shortest route possible between two points, reducing fuel consumption. 
• Sustainable Aviation Fuels Northwest was established with Alaska and 35 other stakeholders in and around the northwest to help develop biofuels that can be used to fuel aircraft. In November 2011 Alaska had its first biofuel flight.

Alaska continues to be ranked #1 in fuel efficiency compared to major competitors across the states. You can find more information regarding their goals to reduce their footprint at their website here: Alaska Airlines Environmental Responsibility