I am writing this from Dallas Love Field Airport, after participating in Southwest Airline’s Media Day. It is my first time at DAL and it is a great airport, with lots of good restaurants and great places to plug in your computer and catch up on your work.
Media Day seemed to focus on Southwest’s environmental initiatives- including the debut of their “Green Airplane” featuring new recycled carpeting, seat covers and life vest pouches that will make its maiden voyage to Seattle this evening. According to Southwest CEO Gary Kelly, these innovations could save about five pounds a seat for an overall reduction of 519 pounds on the 737-700 airplane serving as the test bed for these innovations. The airplane will be in revenue service for about six months so if you fly Southwest Airlines you get a chance to try out the new seats. You will know the airplane right away from the large placards on the overhead bins heralding sustainability.
Gary also announced new service beginning in May 2010 at the new Northwest Florida – Panama City International Airport and nine new daily flights to six new destinations from St. Louis Lambert International Airport. Both are ACI-NA members are we are thrilled for the airports and their communities. Congratulations!
The news that is unlikely to be featured as prominently in the media stories is the work underway by airports to mitigate the effects of aviation on the environment. I was pleased and honored to participate on a panel with my colleague and friend Nancy Young, vice president, environmental affairs with the Air Transport Association and Bill Glover, managing director, environmental strategy with Boeing. We all agreed on the value of RNP (required navigational performance) and the importance of air traffic control modernization (remember NextGen begins and ends at airports) to help reduce aircraft emissions as well as the importance of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) developing a global solution to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from aviation. However, we parted ways on whether economic measures should be part of that solution. (ACI-NA believes they should be; ATA and Boeing disagree.)
The event also provided another opportunity to discuss the Sustainable Aviation Guidance Alliance (SAGA) database debuted last week at the ACI-NA Annual Conference in Austin. Thanks again to everyone whose hard work made that possible!
– By Debby McElroy