New Delhi, July 2 (IANS) Nordic carrier Finnair says it plans to reduce aircraft emissions by 41 percent by 2017 through continuing fleet renewals.
‘Our goal is to reduce emissions between 2009 and 2017 by 24 percent per seat and per 100 kilometres. Between 1999 and 2009 we succeeded in reducing emissions by 22 percent. Our ambitious overall target is to reduce emissions by 41 percent between 1999 and 2017,’ Kati Ihamaki, Finnair’s vice president for sustainable development, writes on the airline’s blog.
As a result of Finnair’s continuing fleet renewal, she says, the airline has ‘one of the newest fleets flying in our airline category’.
‘If 95 per cent of an airline’s environmental impact comes from engine emissions, nobody can say that the fleet is insignificant in the context of environmental work.’
Ihamaki also notes that Finnair had reduced its environmental effects ‘in all other respects on an annual regular basis. This work is part of our normal operations. The reduction of fuel consumption and the subsequent reduction in emissions support both economic and environmental aspects of sustainable development’.
Finnair’s major long-haul fleet renewal was carried out ‘with this precise aim’, she writes, adding: ‘Now we have returned to almost business as usual, if there is such a thing, and that’s why we stated targets for the coming years in relation to normal operations. This issue has been explained clearly in our reporting and to my mind demonstrates integrity; under no circumstances do targets go unmentioned’.
