Analytical Models for CO 2 Emissions and Travel Time for Short-to-Medium-Haul Flights Considering Available Seats

Adeline Montlaur, Luis Delgado and César Trapote-Barreira
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Adeline Montlaur: Aerospace Engineering Division, Department of Physics, Technical University of Catalonia—BarcelonaTech, 088860 Castelldefels, Spain
Luis Delgado: School of Architecture and Cities, University of Westminster, London NW1 5LS, UK
César Trapote-Barreira: Aerospace Engineering Division, Department of Physics, Technical University of Catalonia—BarcelonaTech, 088860 Castelldefels, Spain

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 18, 1-23

Abstract: Recently, there has been much interest in measuring the environmental impact of short-to-medium-haul flights. Emissions of CO 2 are usually measured to consider the environmental footprint, and CO 2 calculators are available using different types of approximations. We propose analytical models calculating gate-to-gate CO 2 emissions and travel time based on the flight distance and on the number of available seats. The accuracy of the numerical results were in line with other CO 2 calculators, and when applying an analytical fitting, the error of interpolation was low. The models presented the advantage with respect to other calculators of being sensitive to the number of available seats, a parameter generally not explicitly considered. Its applicability was shown in two practical examples where emissions and travel time per kilometre were calculated for several European routes in a simple and efficient manner. The model enabled the identification of routes where rail would be a viable alternative both from the emissions and total travel time perspectives.

Keywords: emissions calculation; analytical model; short-haul flights; modal shift; travel time (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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