Giuliano Giacaglia pfp
Giuliano Giacaglia
@giu
Flying commercial flights is similar to taking a bus in the air. Hopefully most Americans can fly private within the next 30 years. Cheap energy is the unlock! Let’s have an exciting future!
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Daikie.eth 🎩 pfp
Daikie.eth 🎩
@daikie
Flight is heavily subsidized. Pound for pound traveling by bus is way more efficient
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Thomas pfp
Thomas
@aviationdoctor.eth
Subsidized how? I mean I have my own opinion as to how it’s subsidized, but I’m not sure it’s what you have in mind.
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Daikie.eth 🎩 pfp
Daikie.eth 🎩
@daikie
It's not just an opinion https://simpleflying.com/aviation-fuel-taxation-guide/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-awards-nearly-1-billion-airports-infrastructure-grants-2023-02-27/
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Thomas pfp
Thomas
@aviationdoctor.eth
Right. US airports are (mostly) public utilities, so they are funded by the municipalities or states. Airlines do pay to use them (passenger and landing charges). So airports are not subsidized - they are publicly-funded infrastructure, whose usage then actually gets charged to users. #1
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Thomas pfp
Thomas
@aviationdoctor.eth
Jet fuel is a better example, though it’s only an indirect subsidy and only to the extent that some places don’t tax it the way they do tax other petroleum derivatives. #2
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Thomas pfp
Thomas
@aviationdoctor.eth
My own bigger picture take is that aviation is subsidized in the sense that only 10–15% of all humans fly, but 100% of humanity bears the cost of its negative externalities, in the form of GHG emissions and contrails (to which the sector contributes about ~3–4%). #3
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Thomas pfp
Thomas
@aviationdoctor.eth
If we were to factor those externalities back into the price of air tickets, it would be a $150–200 surcharge per ton of CO2. That to me is the most important subsidy – we’re essentially asking all non-fliers and their children (as well as ours) to subsidize our tickets. #4
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Q🎩 pfp
Q🎩
@qsteak.eth
Be interested to know how much of that is driven by policy? Ex: you disconnect the sky bridge and switch to engine power ASAP because the union says they need to start the pilot clock. If they stayed hooked up until it was actually time to depart, you could rely on more efficient energy from the ground source.
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Thomas pfp
Thomas
@aviationdoctor.eth
In this particular example: negligible. The US (where this union consideration exists) is only ~10% of all airline flights. Non-flight ops (incl. parking/taxiing) is less than 10% of emissions. And staying on ground power could maybe save 10% of pre-departure fuel burn. So, probably on the ROM of 0.1%, give or take. #1
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Thomas pfp
Thomas
@aviationdoctor.eth
Additionally, electric taxiing is already being deployed gradually, so even if disconnected from ground power, the aircraft soon won’t need its engines to taxi (only the APU for onboard power). #2
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Thomas pfp
Thomas
@aviationdoctor.eth
The big ticket item remains sustainable fuel (SAF) adoption (~66% of CO2 savings), followed by technology (more fuel-efficient engines), followed by ops (e.g., continuous descent, contrail avoidance). #3
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