The World’s “Greenest” Airlines

While doing my typical stroll through the social media I happened upon a link that talked about a first ever ranking of the worlds largest commercial airlines in terms of their environmental impact.

The ranking was created and compiled by a German organization called Atmosfair.  The methodology used in creating the ranking was rather complex and gave consideration to a number of elements such as the age of airline fleets, the load factors involved and even the routes travelled.  So what did the rankings tell us?

The “Greenest Airline” designation went to Monarch Airlines, which is a charter airline based in the United Kingdom.  It’s fleet of relatively modern and fuel efficient aircraft, coupled with its high load factors placed it atop all airlines that were ranked.  2nd spot went to German charter carrier Condor Airlines, while 3rd spot went to Canadian charter heavyweight Air Transat, which was also noted as being the Greenest airline in the Long Haul category.

A scan of the list showcased a number of airlines occupying places that we hope they would want to improve upon.  Here were some notables:

29th      –     US Airways

30th     –     Emirates Airlines

33rd     –     Delta Airlines

37th     –     Air France

38th     –     Continental Airlines

41st      –     Quantas Airlines

45th     –     Cathay Pacific Airlines

47th     –     Air Canada

48th     –     United Airlines

50th     –     KLM/Royal Dutch Airlines

52nd    –     Lufthansa Airlines

61st      –     British Airways

63rd     –     American Airlines

85th     –     Alitalia

99th     –     Virgin Atlantic Airways

The findings of the report clearly indicated that to be green an airline needed to keep their aircraft as modern as possible and to put as many seats into a plane as they safely and reasonably can do.  Given that some airlines continue to fly older aircraft as well as the fact that people who fly still tend to want their legroom, it sill be interesting to see how studies like this fly in the face of airline market forces.

To learn more about the Airline Index and to view the full report PLEASE CLICK HERE.