In August 2016, Virgin America celebrated nine years of service to passengers throughout the United States and Mexico. Looking back over nearly a decade of operations, the California-based airline released the 2016 Sustainability Report, detailing its numerous environmental initiatives and the significant measurable impact they have had on the carrier’s overall sustainability, as well as the sustainable goals it plans to pursue moving forward. Since its first flight in 2008, Virgin America has successfully implemented 25 fuel-efficiency initiatives that have yielded fuel savings of more than 12 million gallons, allowing the airline to exceed the industry average for fuel efficiency. The carrier has also worked to reduce waste generated by its own operations and those of its partners, emphasized recycling, and leveraged new technologies to limit noise pollution. Virgin America’s fleet of Airbus A320 family aircraft outshines comparable US fleets in terms of age and fuel efficiency, and additional innovations ranging from sustainable engines to advanced navigational systems have allowed the airline to further improve its environmental sustainability. In 2008, Virgin America invited passengers to help offset their personal carbon emissions via a unique interface included in its seatback entertainment system, and since then, the airline has taken measures to counter more than 15 million pounds of C02 emissions. In acknowledging nine years of environmentally conscious operations, Virgin America also took the opportunity to highlight new sustainable goals for the future. Seeking to maintain its role as an industry leader in sustainability, Virgin seeks to achieve year-on-year fuel efficiency increases of at least 1.5 percent until 2020, at which point it plans to achieve a net carbon emissions cap. Following this, the airline plans to operate on a carbon neutral basis, and by 2050, Virgin America hopes to have cut carbon emissions by 50 percent compared to levels recorded in 2005.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
About David Pflieger
David Pflieger - Senior Airline Executive
Archives
December 2018
Categories
All
|