Plane Truth Aviation’s Real Impact on People and the Environment Rose Bridger
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First published 2013 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA www.plutobooks.com Distributed in the United States of America exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010 Copyright Š Rose Bridger 2013 The right of Rose Bridger to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7453 3033 4 Hardback ISBN 978 0 7453 3032 7 Paperback ISBN 978 1 8496 4960 5 PDF eBook ISBN 978 1 8496 4962 9 Kindle eBook ISBN 978 1 8496 4961 2 EPUB eBook Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Typeset from disk by Curran Publishing Services Ltd, Norwich, England Simultaneously printed digitally by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, UK and Edwards Bros in the United States of America
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Contents Acronyms Glossary A Note on the Text Acknowledgements
viii x xi xii
Introduction
1
1 The Future of Flight The World’s Busiest Airports The Supersonic Dead End Aviation and the Global Greenhouse Frequent Flyers Regulatory Avoidance The Future Fleet
7 7 10 14 16 20 22
2 Feeding the Fuel Tanks Alternative Fuels Crop Failure Bombs not Food Green Crude Cooking Oil and Cellulose
27 27 30 33 36 39
3 Local Environmental Impacts Localised Air Pollution Sweet Poison On Flood Plains Fuel Leaks Fires Far Away
44 44 48 52 55 58
4 Threats to Wildlife and Farmland The Winged Menace Loss of Green Space On Indian Farmland
62 62 65 70
v
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contents 5 Green Garnish Green Power Greenwash Passenger Processing
76 76 80 84
6 Air Cargo Multimodal Cargo Flying Refrigerators Another Ethiopia
90 90 94 98
7 Industrial Cargo Airlinked Assembly Lines The Cargo Giants For the Oil Industry Extreme Oil Remote Resource Extraction
103 103 105 108 112 116
8 Arms, Aid and Accidents Arms and Aid to Africa Africa’s Abysmal Air Safety Record Crashes and Conflict in DR Congo From Reconnaissance to Rendition
119 119 122 125 129
9 Concrete and Overcapacity Stimulus and Subsidies An Airport to Nowhere The OMP Boondoggle Overcapacity in Illinois
133 133 136 139 142
10 Counting the Costs The Taxpayers’ Burden Flag Carrier Bailouts Economic Doubts Jobs for Robots Destinations in Their Own Right
147 147 152 156 159 162
11 Real Estate and Revenue Streams On Airport Land
168 168
vi
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contents
Shops and Solar Panels Cashing in on Green Space Site Struggles Money on the Ground Shale Gas Hotspots
171 173 176 180 183
12 How Aviation Keeps Growing The Importance of Non-Aeronautical Revenue The Oil Price Forecasts and the Future
187 187 189 192
Appendix: NGOs working to address the environmental and economic impacts of aviation expansion
196
Notes Index
197 261
vii
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Introduction If you look at satellite images of the world’s cities, the pale grey shape of an airport is likely to be the most prominent humanmade feature. Looking closer, major airports have a grid-like appearance. Linear runways are surrounded by grey buildings, access roads and patches of grass. Most of the airport site is invisible from the ground. Passengers are confined to the accessible areas of terminals, seeing little but shops, food outlets and advertising. When I began writing about aviation it was obvious that visiting airports would not be enlightening. So I didn’t go anywhere. Instead, I used the internet to research operations and expansion plans all over the world. The growth of aviation, over the course of little more than a century, has been remarkable. On 17 December 1903, the first aeroplane, designed and built by two brothers, Orville and Wilbur Wright, flew for twelve seconds, covering 250 metres, over the Cape Hatteras sands in North Carolina.1 By 2011, the number of air passengers reached 5.44 billion2 and the global fleet of commercial aircraft numbered 19,890. Airport expansion plans are informed by forecasts made by Boeing and Airbus, the two firms supplying most of the global fleet. Both firms predict that passenger numbers and the global aircraft fleet will double over the next 20 years.3 The speed of flight brings many advantages. Journeys across the world, taking just a few hours by plane, are rarely undertaken by surface transport. Multiple legs by some combination of road, rail and boat take days or weeks. Air transport enhances global connectivity, bringing the tremendous benefit of increasing communication, and building understanding, between people of different cultures. For all the sophistication of electronic communication, we still feel a strong need to meet face to face, to share 1
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plane truth the same space. No form of representation can replace actually being present in a beautiful landscape or a lively city. Yet aviation expansion is one of the most divisive issues of our time. The primary reason for opposition is the high environmental cost. Localised environmental damage, near airport sites, is not felt by flyers, but by people on the ground. New airports and runways inevitably entail displacement of people, and the loss of wildlife habitats and farmland. Neighbouring communities are subjected to high levels of air pollution and noise. In democratic countries, where people have a say in planning decisions, and the right to freedom of expression and protest, proposals for a new runway or a new airport are often met by a vigorous antiexpansion campaign. Protest is not confined to local concerns. Aviation, fossil-fuel dependent and energy intensive, is a fastgrowing source of greenhouse gases, which cause climate change, a global environmental crisis threatening our survival. In general, emissions per passenger are higher than for surface travel. The same is true for air cargo, carried in the belly-hold of passenger flights and in dedicated freighters, an industry that attracts little publicity. A modal shift to surface transport would significantly reduce carbon emissions, but expansion of freight terminals is underway, and Boeing predicts that air cargo growth will follow a similar trajectory to passenger numbers, doubling over 20 years.4 Consumer goods, such as electronic products and fashion garments, are air freighted so that arrival in stores coincides with marketing campaigns. Whole aircraft are filled up with livestock and wild animals. Perishable produce – fruit, vegetables, fish and flowers – is the main export from poor southern countries. Air cargo also plays an important role in industry, from resource extraction to manufacturing. There is no technofix on the horizon that will reconcile aviation expansion with reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. New aircraft are only marginally more fuel-efficient. Biofuels are the only viable alternative to fossil-fuel-derived kerosene. The enormous amounts of energy used to grow and process crops mean 2
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introduction that biofuel greenhouse gas emissions are higher than from fossil fuels. Dreams of miracle biofuel crops have come to nothing. The crops used for aviation biofuel either consist of, or displace, food crops, contributing to rising food prices and hunger. As the environmental damage of aviation becomes more widely recognised, proponents of expansion emphasise economic benefits from passengers’ expenditure and trade in goods. But the economic impacts are not straightforward. Aviation places a heavy burden on taxpayers. The majority of airport construction is government funded. Tax exemptions on fuel for international flights underpin airlines’ economic viability. Sales of duty-free goods at airports and in flight drain tax revenue from national exchequers. Aircraft manufacturing by Boeing and Airbus is heavily subsidised. Since the economic downturn, governments in all world regions have intervened to prop up ailing national airlines with financial support packages. Invariably, airport expansion is announced with the promise of high levels of employment, but evidence is mounting that the level of job creation is overstated. Airports are highly mechanised, creating more jobs for robots than for people. Host communities do not necessarily reap income from tourism. Short-haul flights, which could be replaced by surface transport, are increasing, as are domestic flights, which do not bring the advantages of international connectivity. Airports’ evolution into destinations in their own right – with a proliferation of shops, restaurants, hotels and entertainment complexes – erodes the economic boon to the surrounding region. ‘Non-aeronautical revenue’ from these facilities is used to cross-subsidise expansion and reduce charges to airlines. Airports capture more of travellers’ expenditure, and the facilities draw trade from the local market. The economic effect is the very opposite of boosting businesses in the catchment area, which is held up as the main rationale for airport expansion. This book looks critically at all these issues. Chapter 1 examines aviation growth and greenhouse gas emissions. The eastward shift of economic power is reflected in the scale of 3
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plane truth airport expansion in Beijing and Dubai. Emissions from flying raise issues of inequity. But flight remains the preserve of a small minority, who are, in global terms, affluent. A global elite leaves an even heavier carbon footprint from luxury flights, in first and business class and on private jets. The aviation industry has a track record of avoiding regulations enforcing emissions reduction, and overstates the potential of reductions from traffic management and aircraft fuel efficiency. Aviation biofuels are covered in Chapter 2. Jatropha, an inedible crop, was planted all over Africa and Asia, but failed to thrive on infertile land. A drive to fill US military aircraft with biofuel made from camelina, a nutritious oilseed crop, threatens to sacrifice food supplies at the altar of increasing domestic energy supply. Growing algae, on water, avoids land use issues, but only minute volumes of algal biofuel have been produced. Chapter 3 explores the many ways in which airports blight communities. High levels of noise inflicted on people living under flightpaths are more than a nuisance; they cause serious health problems. Air pollutants emitted by aircraft are linked to respiratory illnesses and cancer. Uncontrolled runoff of de-icing fluid into waterways has a devastating effect on aquatic life. Airports built on floodplains in Chennai, Mumbai and Bangkok have exacerbated flooding in neighbouring communities. Leaks from fuel tanks and pipelines cause long-term contamination of groundwater. Aviation fuel is highly flammable, and there have been fires and explosions at depots and refineries. Chapter 4 examines aviation’s impacts on wildlife and farmland. Bird strikes (collisions between aircraft and birds) can endanger flights. When attempts to frighten birds away from airports fail, they are killed. Culls have increased, new methods have been devised to keep birds away from airports. Building ‘greenfield’ airports, on undeveloped land, obliterates wildlife habitats and agricultural land. All over India, there is tumultuous protest against acquisition of farmland for greenfield airports. None of the environmental damage caused by aviation is 4
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introduction apparent to passengers. Chapter 5 addresses the industry’s efforts to present a green image. Passenger terminals are showcases for energy efficiency and recycling. A growing number are topped with solar panels and windmills. But the energy supplied is only sufficient for a small proportion of the requirements of airport buildings, and negligible compared with the energy provided by the jet fuel pumped into aircraft. Airlines and airports run environmental awareness campaigns, lecturing passengers on how to green their lifestyles. None of this has any bearing on the flights, by far the most environmentally damaging aspect of operations. Air cargo is considered in Chapter 6, within the context of multimodal transportation of goods, and the far larger volumes transported by ship. Types of goods that are transported by air are all of high value, with the exception of perishable food and flowers. Ethiopia’s flower, fruit and vegetable exports are growing rapidly, but earnings have not reached the millions who depend on emergency food aid. Aviation’s role in the industrial system is explored in Chapter 7. Air cargo supports the globalisation of manufacturing with delivery of components to sites dispersed around the globe. The world’s largest aircraft deliver heavyweight and outsized industrial equipment. The oil industry’s dependence on aviation is increasing as exploration and extraction moves into ever more challenging terrain, deeper under the oceans and further north towards the arctic. Chapter 8 begins with aviation’s role in supporting resource extraction in Africa. Delivery of mining equipment has been intertwined with supply of illicit weapons. Of all regions, Africa has the highest accident rate, and the death toll includes people living alongside runways. Mining, served by perilous airstrips in steep mountains, fuels conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The chapter concludes with the pivotal role of aviation in wars waged by states, from reconnaissance missions in early hot air balloon flights to the US rendition programme, flying people to secret prisons where they are tortured. 5
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plane truth Chapter 9 tackles US government subsidies for aviation. Stimulus funding granted to airports, in the aftermath of the financial crisis and subsequent economic downturn, was mainly spent on concrete. Construction of the Northwest Florida Beaches Airport, in forested wetlands, was government funded. In the state of Illinois, government funding poured in for expansion of Chicago O’Hare, land purchase for a proposed greenfield airport in Peotone, and a series of failed ventures at MidAmerica Airport, a white elephant in the midst of farmland. Chapter 10 analyses the economic drawbacks of aviation, including the burden on taxpayers, the elimination of airport jobs, and airports’ appropriation of income from the flow of passengers through non-aeronautical activities. Airports’ non-aeronautical revenue from commercial development on real estate, beyond the airport boundary, is examined in Chapter 11. The global phenomenon of the ‘aerotropolis’ – airports surrounded by urbanisation – is predicated on airport ownership of, and revenue from, the land upon which development takes place. Land that is not built on can be turned to income generation, from food and biofuel crops. Autocratic governments in Asia designate large greenfield sites for aerotropolis development. A number of US airports are cashing in on oil wells and the shale gas boom. Continued growth in passenger numbers and cargo volumes, in spite of the economic downturn, is explored in Chapter 12. I identify three key factors: rising non-aeronautical revenues, airlines’ resilience in the face of rising fuel prices, and government provision of airport capacity expansion on the basis that it drives economic growth. But the evidence that aviation expansion increases economic growth is unconvincing, and it is the wrong metric for assessing the benefits to the host community and wider society. The economic case for aviation expansion is dubious. The environmental damage caused by aviation is undeniable. Transition to a sustainable transportation system, curbing aviation growth, is vital. I hope this book helps to achieve it.
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