Airlines and airports in Canada are flying high on energy efficiency and cutting greenhouse gas emissions, driven as much by soaring fuel costs as environmental concerns.

A big payback for airlines, both financially and environmentally, is replacing fuel-inefficient aircraft with sleek new planes that sip jet fuel and slip more easily through the air compared with older models.

"The less fuel we burn, the less greenhouse gases are produced," says Les Aalders, vice-president of engineering and maintenance for the Air Transport Association of Canada (ATAC) in Ottawa.

WestJet, for example, has decided to step up replacing its entire fleet of aging Boeing 737-200 aircraft and will, by the end of this year, be flying 16 "next-generation" Boeing 737-700 planes.

Photo courtesy of Vancouver International Airport
The solar panel farm at Vancouver airport produces savings of nearly $90,000 annually.

The new 700-series aircraft are about 30-per-cent more fuel efficient per available seat-mile than the older planes, the Calgary-based company says.

Upgrading the fleet "will likely result in WestJet having the lowest cost per available seat-mile in North America," president and CEO Clive Beddoe predicts.

Aalders says ATAC members also see big potential gains in energy efficiency by changing some aircraft operating procedures.

ATAC's 300 member companies represent about 95 per cent of commercial aviation in Canada, and include major airlines, aircraft manufacturers, equipment suppliers and flight-training schools.

In most cases, commercial aircraft aren't allowed to take the most fuel-efficient routes into and out of airports, because they have to avoid flying over residential areas due to noise concerns, Aalders says. "Hopefully that can be revisited, because we have much quieter airplanes these days."

ATAC plans to work with Nav Canada, which provides air traffic control services, Transport Canada and neighbouring communities to make aircraft routings as energy-efficient as possible. "There are a lot of more efficient procedures that will go a long way to helping reduce fuel burn and greenhouse gas emissions," Aalders says.

ATAC's members also have negotiated an agreement with Transport Canada, as part of Ottawa's Kyoto implementation plan, to voluntarily reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 1.1 per cent annually.

If they reach their goal, the association's members will have reduced emissions by 24 per cent by 2012 from the 1990 baseline line year used to set Kyoto targets.

The annual reduction "doesn't sound like much, but the impact is enormous," says Cliff Mackay, president of ATAC.

By 2012, Canada's air carriers will have burned about 1.1 billion fewer litres of fuel compared with 1990 levels, Mackay notes. That's enough fuel to fill the gas tanks of about 22 million automobiles.

ATAC's members will also have cut their carbon dioxide and equivalent emissions by a total of 2.84 million tonnes by 2012.

The domestic aviation sector's total greenhouse gas emissions grew to about 13.2 million tonnes in 2002, compared with 10.7 million tonnes in 1990, according to the most recent Environment Canada figures.

The federal Kyoto plan doesn't require a mandatory reduction of emissions from the sector or impose an emissions cap on the industry.

"In a vast country like ours, it's totally not practical and the government realizes that," Aalders says.

John Terpstra, senior director of terminal operations for the Calgary Airport Authority, says Calgary International Airport has been practising energy conservation and efficiency long before the world heard the word Kyoto.

"We have an obligation to reduce our power consumption, to be as energy efficient as possible because the less it costs us to run our business, the less we charge our tenants," Terpstra says. "It makes business sense and it always has."

Initiatives have included adding new exits and a taxiway on the airfield that enable planes landing or taking off to maintain a constant, more fuel-efficient speed, without hard braking.

Calgary airport's new terminal building and other facilities built during the last few years have all been designed to high energy-efficiency standards, Terpstra says.

For example, escalators are geared to slow down when nobody is using them, reducing energy consumption by 75 per cent. Similarly, cooling fans and other motorized equipment have variable-speed motors that save power by not working as hard when demand is low.

Other energy-smart features of Calgary's airport include highly efficient, low-nitrogen oxide emissions boilers, motion-triggered and timed shut-off lighting systems and an electricity-conserving underground tank for cooling drinking water.

Edmonton International Airport made changes last year to its air terminal building's heating system that have yielded a 22-per-cent increase in energy efficiency and a 4,000-tonnes-per-year reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, says spokeswoman Traci Bednard.

The airport and Atco Gas also partnered in putting the first natural gas refuelling station at an airport in Canada, which has helped reduce fuel costs and emissions for airport vehicles and other patrons.

Vancouver International Airport Authority last fall installed a $500,000 solar-powered hot water heating system - the largest in B.C.

The 100 solar panels on the roof of the domestic terminal building heat an average of more than 3,600 litres of hot water each hour and will contribute to energy savings of nearly $90,000 per year.

Vancouver airport, working with BC Hydro's Power Smart Program, has saved about $2 million in electricity costs since 1996 through various energy-conserving and energy-efficiency measures. "Energy reduction makes sense, both environmentally and financially," says Bob Cowan, senior vice-president of engineering with the Vancouver Airport Authority.

Toronto's Pearson airport - Canada's busiest - a few years ago became the first North American airport to achieve the prestigious ISO 14001 international certification, awarded to organizations that have an independently audited environmental management system for all operations.

The Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) incorporated energy-efficient "green" building designs and equipment in the first phase of the new Terminal 1 at Pearson, which was completed last year.

The GTAA also operates two cargo vans and one pickup truck powered by natural gas, two Honda Civic hybrids and eight Toyota Prius Generation 1 vehicles. Clean-burning biodiesel fuel is used in other airport equipment.

The GTAA, which reports its air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions to the federal National Pollutant Release Inventory program, is also preparing an airports-wide emissions-reduction program.

Canada's commercial aviation industry, which since the early 1970s has improved its fuel efficiency by 51 per cent for every person or kilogram of cargo carried, believes that a voluntary effort to make further improvements can get results, ATAC's Aalders notes.

"We firmly believe that you get people onboard to understand the benefits, and then they do it much quicker and everybody gains," he says.

(Mark Lowey can be reached at mark@businessedge.ca)