Carbon footprinting of Combined Passenger Freight Operations in Aviation Networks
report
If CO2 emissions are taken into account in planning air freight logistics, the IATA RP 1678 method for CO2 emission computations will give preference to using a dedicated freighter over the belly of a passenger aircraft for transporting cargo in an aviation network. This report quantitatively illustrates that this can lead to unnecessary freighter aircraft movements and additional real world CO2 emissions compared to the optimal choice from a climate change mitigation perspective. The current carbon footprint methodology for aviation networks, IATA RP 1678, is thus directionally incorrect. In airline networks freight is transported in two ways: on dedicated freighter aircraft and in the belly space of passenger aircraft. Transporting passengers yields more than transporting freight per unit of weight, so the development of combined passenger and freight airline networks is mostly driven by passenger demand. The dedicated freighter network structure and intensity develop solely due to freight transport demand. Therefore, the most efficient airline network operations would first utilize the available belly freight capacity, and only use dedicated freighters if there is no suitable or sufficient capacity in the passenger networks.
Topics
TNO Identifier
884167
Publisher
TNO
Collation
38 p.
Place of publication
Den Haag