Carbon dioxide emissions of turbine business aircraft departing from U.S. airports are down 62 percent from 2005, meaning the industry appears to have already achieved its long-term goal of halving emissions by 2050 relative to 2005 levels—at least in the U.S. This is according to data from the Environmental Protect Agency’s (EPA) latest annual inventory of greenhouse gas emissions, released yesterday.
In 2022—the most current year for which EPA has data—turbine business aircraft accounted for 9.8 percent of the 231.5 million tonnes of CO2 emissions of all turbine aircraft operations in the U.S. and just 1.3 percent of all transportation emissions in the U.S. These calculations apply to fuel purchased in the U.S. and used by aircraft taking off from U.S. airports.
Notably, the EPA data indicates that carbon emissions from U.S. business jets and turboprops fell 38 percent from 2019 to 2022, while at the same time business aircraft utilization climbed 22.6 percent. Per TraqPak data from Argus International, turbine business aircraft departures from U.S. airports rose from 4.02 million flight hours in 2019 to 4.93 million flight hours in 2022.
Overall turbine airplane emissions in the U.S. “decreased by 5 percent between 2019 and 2022, but have decreased 7 percent since 2007,” the report states. Decreases in jet fuel emissions starting in 2007 are “due in part to improved operational efficiency that results in more direct flight routing, and improvements in aircraft and engine technologies to reduce fuel burn and emissions.” However, the sharp decline in commercial aircraft emissions from 2019 to 2020 and their gradual recovery since is primarily due to Covid-19 impacts.
According to NBAA president and CEO Ed Bolen, every new model of business aircraft is as much as 30 percent more efficient than a model it replaces. “We are pioneers in efficiency, gaining advances, whether it’s winglets, whether it’s composite technologies, early adoption of GPS, all of those things that we have done, we’ve demonstrated that we are an incubator for innovation that has promoted efficiency, which is the equivalent of sustainability,” he said.
The EPA also attributes reduced emissions over the last few years to the “accelerated retirement of older, less fuel-efficient aircraft.” That is true for airliners, but the average age of business aircraft in the U.S. has averaged nearly two decades for several years. According to a recent analysis by Airbus Corporate Jets, the average age is 18.5 years.