OEMs such as Honeywell displayed new engine technology as well as equipment for the connected aircraft.
World in Data. Business aircraft annually emit 2 percent as much as the commercial jetliner fleet, or 20 million metric tons, according to the GAMA and NBAA. That’s 0.05 percent of the total. Tobacco use, in contrast, annually produces 84 million metric tons of CO2, more than four times as much as busi- ness aircraft, according to the World Health Orga- nization (WHO). Those statistics are conspicuously omitted by business jet critics. The heat on private aircraft use is likely to increase with the rise in glob- al warming. SAF ENTERS THE CHAT Rolland Vincent, creator of Jetnet IQ, maintains that business aircraft operators increasingly are em- bracing sustainability to reduce the industry’s car- bon footprint. In the most recent Jetnet IQ survey, 56 percent of respondents would “seriously consid- er” flying with sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in the next 24 months. This is up from 31 percent who en- dorsed SAF in Jetnet IQ’s third-quarter 2019 survey, signifying “strong progress on SAF consideration over four years,” Vincent says. Honeywell reports that two-thirds of operators are seeking to adopt “new or (to) increase sustain- able methods in the future.” These include using commercial airlines instead of corporate aircraft when convenient and flying at slower cruise speeds, in addition to using SAF.
COUNTERING THE CRITICS Strengthening security at the 2023 Las Vegas BACE was only the NBAA’s first step in mounting a vig- orous counteroffensive to business aviation crit- ics. NBAA president Ed Bolen officially launched “Climbing. Fast.”—a new three-phase publicity and education campaign “aimed at setting the record straight” about the benefits of business aviation to society at large, the industry’s commitment to sus- tainability, and career opportunities for young peo- ple. The new campaign, having considerably broader scope and support, builds upon and replaces NBAA’s and the General Aviation Manufacturers Associa- tion’s 14-year-old “No Plane No Gain” campaign. “Climbing Fast” is sponsored by the AOPA, EAA, HAI, and International Aircraft Dealers Association, in addition to NBAA and GAMA. And it could not have come a moment too soon, as high-profile media outlets, including Bloomberg, CBS, and CNBC, plus Time magazine , The Guardian , and The Economist continue to call out business aviation for its carbon impact and cost to the environment. Environmen- talists often point out that business jets emit five to 14 times as much carbon per passenger as commer- cial jetliners. That’s indeed undisputed. What’s not mentioned is proportionality. Com- mercial jetliners produce about 1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, 2.5 percent of total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, according to Our
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