Branson is at it again. This time he has a real idea that seems to make perfect sense on paper (or in front of the world's press). The intransigence of the airline industry is however legendary. Will Branson's energy and public profile be enough? This blog will be watching closely and will of course attempt to report on progress long after the hype and the journalists have gone. Here are three of the more pertinent paragraphs from the article to give you some flavour of the new idea.
Virgin Group chairman British billionaire Richard Branson proposed a plan Wednesday to cut aviation emissions at busy airports, starting at London's Gatwick Airport.
He proposed "starting grids" be set up at major airports which would allow a plane to be towed from its stand by a small tug closer to the runway before takeoff, reducing the time engines are running.
Using starting gates, rather than the current practice of keeping a plane's engines running from push-back to take-off, would cut fuel consumption and on-the-ground carbon emissions for Virgin Atlantic aircraft by more than 50 percent at London's Heathrow Airport and almost 90 percent at New York's John F. Kennedy airport, Branson said earlier.
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/38287/story.htm
3 comments:
New layout? not as good as before.
Apologies for new format. The side bar appeared too messy before with the faded blue font plus the fact that we do not really know what we are doing.
Hi Charles, thanks for the kind comment.
Matt Cole commented on Branson's original press release on the day:
http://globalisation-and-the-environment.blogspot.com/2006/09/should-we-care-what-bransons-motives.html
When we were generally supportive. We intend to post on the renewable fuel efforts this weekend.
I believe it's a good idea to link blog comments on your FT page.
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