News: The Big Orange launch green revolution
Flights > News > # 1317 (14/06/2007)
Easyjet has unveiled the most ambitious plans yet to combat the environmental damage caused by aviation.
The budget airline has designed its own short-haul “super-clean” aircraft, which it says could take to the skies as early as 2015.
Dubbed the “Easyjet Ecojet”, the aircraft would be 25% quieter and produce 50% less carbon dioxide and 75% less nitrogen dioxide than today’s greenest aircraft. Easyjet even claim the hi-tech jet would be less polluting than trains on equivalent short-haul journeys.
The design features a number of radical technical innovations, including forward facing wings, rear-mounted open-rotor engines, anti-noise shields and the latest weight reducing materials.
Easyjet chief executive, Andy Harrison, said the no-frills carrier would be prepared to buy hundreds of the “Ecojets” if they were available today, adding: “Today’s aircraft are typically 70% cleaner and 75% quieter than their 1960s counterparts. Now we are planning the next generation that will help towards taking the plane out of the emissions equation.
“Easyjet is already setting the environmental standard in the airline industry. Our fleet of 131 aircraft has an average age of only 2.3 years – the youngest of any major airline in Europe. We have recently called for over 700 of the dirtiest aircraft to be banned from Europe’s skies and are active supporters of the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme and Single European Skies programme.
“The aircraft example we have unveiled today represents the next major step forward in airframe and engine technology. The lightweight structure and open-rotor engines are based on technologies that are being developed right now by the major manufacturers. The “Easyjet Ecojet” is realistic and it is achievable."
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Comment:
We were expecting Easyjet to bring together an album of their previous environmental statements, and perhaps mix in a carbon trading initiative along the lines of the one recently announced by Flybe, but the Ecojet proposals really do go a great deal further than this, even if this is just a prototype at this stage. Even if many of the cynics have chosen to ignore this development, or to point out all of its faults, we still feel that Easyjet should be congratulated for taking such a bold step.
