Evaluation and Mitigation Analysis of Carbon Footprint for Nepal Airlines Corporation

Abstract

This research deals with evaluation and analysis of carbon footprint of an airline operator, Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) by using its actual flight and maintenance data from 2016 to 2019. NAC is a multi-fleet operator, of both turboprop and turbofan aircrafts. Carbon footprint in terms of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emission has been calculated for NAC’s airline operations per individual aircraft, fleet-type and operating sector (i.e., international and domestic), and also from its total ground handling operations. Actual flight data including fuel burn, flight time, city pairs, take-off weight and engine life data has been used for NAC’s aircrafts. Using jet fuel emission factoras per ICAO emission methodology, CO2 emission of NAC’s flight operations has been evaluated. Excel add-ins i.e. Correlation and Regression analyses and Crystal Ball toolshave been used to analyze the cause and effect of CO2 emissions by NAC. In each of the study years, contribution to NAC’s total CO2 production from its domestic fleet was found out to be very small (below 6% of yearly total), even though its fleet number outnumbered that of the international fleet. This indicates better optimization opportunities for turbofan aircrafts used in international sector than turboprop aircrafts used in domestic sector. As an airline operator, and also a ground handling service provider, total CO2 emission from ground handling operations is less than 1% of the total carbon emission from direct combustion of fuels. As such, mitigation strategies in its airline operations optimization could be more beneficial. Reductions in fuel on-board as per prescribed Original Equipment Manufacturer and operator levels, better airport slot management, reductions in existing route distance and selection of long-haul flights in case of new destinations have been identified as potential mitigation strategies for CO2 emission from international sector. Also, equal amount of carbon taxing per ticket irrespective of aircraft type or destination could be invested in carbon neutral programsto offset the existing produced CO2 emission. Smaller aircrafts operating in domestic sectors are more prone to variations in occupancy rate and as such, NAC could focus on optimizing its commercial strategy to improve its CO2/passenger rate in domestic sector.