{"id":1240528,"date":"2017-07-06T00:01:43","date_gmt":"2017-07-06T10:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.civilbeat.org\/?p=1240528"},"modified":"2017-07-05T18:20:09","modified_gmt":"2017-07-06T04:20:09","slug":"hawaiian-airlines-needs-to-commit-to-renewable-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.civilbeat.org\/2017\/07\/hawaiian-airlines-needs-to-commit-to-renewable-energy\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawaiian Airlines Needs To Commit To Renewable Energy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hawaiian Airlines<\/a> offers a lot to like. It has amusing safety videos, its planes arrive on time and nobody gets beat up. <\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s the good news. <\/span><\/p>\n

The bad news, however, is Hawaiian appears rather lackluster regarding carbon emissions. While the state of Hawaii\u2019s committed to 100 percent renewable energy by 2045, the commitment excludes aviation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Hawaiian
A Hawaiian Airlines jet at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu. <\/span>Cory Lum\/Civil Beat<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Atmosfair<\/a>, a German research organization that evaluates airlines for environmental sustainability, ranks Hawaiian only middle of the pack<\/a> among long-haul carriers serving the islands. <\/span><\/p>\n

Hawaiian flies a fuel-efficient aircraft fleet. The problem seems to lie with Hawaiian\u2019s noncommittal attitude to biofuels. <\/span><\/p>\n

In an interview with Hawaiian\u2019s inflight magazine Hana Hou<\/a>, Hawaiian President and CEO Mark Dunkerley said Hawaiian\u2019s reluctance to use biofuel blends is largely due to safety reasons<\/a> because Hawaiian flies over oceans. <\/span><\/p>\n

That fair enough. Hawaiian cares about safety. We all do. But the excuse is deflated somewhat by other airlines successfully doing it. <\/span><\/p>\n

Take Singapore Airlines<\/a> — another safety conscious carrier. <\/span><\/p>\n

Singapore is now running a trial<\/a> of weekly 8,446-mile flights from San Francisco to Singapore (twice the distance from the U.S. West Coast to Hawaii and all over water) using a biofuel blend in an Airbus A350-900.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hawaiian\u2019s longest route, by comparison, is about 5,000 miles. It\u2019s flown by an Airbus A330 between Honolulu and New York \u2014 with half the flight over land. <\/span><\/p>\n

For its part, Airbus is so confident about biofuels<\/a> it offers to deliver newly-built A350s from Toulouse to buyers using a biofuel blend.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hawaiian\u2019s planning to take delivery of a few of these Airbus planes this year, flown from Toulouse in a 16-hour non-stop flight. <\/span><\/p>\n

Given Singapore Airlines and Airbus\u2019 confidence in biofuels, Dunkerley\u2019s comments in Hana Hou look a bit, well, behind the news.
\nA more practical excuse, of course, could be lack of biofuel supply. But even there, if true, Hawaiian looks — at best — slow off the mark.<\/span><\/p>\n

Take Alaska Airlines<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Alaska\u2019s routinely using biofuel blends<\/a>. It\u2019s also buying biofuel from island-based Hawaii Bioenergy, presumably for the airline\u2019s flights (over water) from Honolulu to Anchorage.<\/span><\/p>\n

Where\u2019s Hawaiian?<\/span><\/p>\n

For its part, Hawaiian\u2019s biggest recent announced sustainability initiative has been to test plugging in its planes to mains power while parked at airports. The goal, naturally, is to reduce ground-based jet fuel consumption<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

In another touted initiative, Hawaiian also says its flights now routinely carry atmospheric monitoring equipment<\/a> to contribute data to climate change studies. <\/span><\/p>\n

Both are great ideas. But it\u2019s also a bit hard to believe both aren\u2019t already widespread practice.<\/span> They look like pretty low-hanging fruit.\u00a0<\/span>I sought answers from Hawaii on the questions above from two different Hawaiian Airlines departments. Both responded by saying that the airline is committed to fuel efficiency and environmental sustainability — which didn\u2019t answer my questions. <\/span><\/p>\n

The state of Hawaii leads the world in its universally-supported political commitment to achieving a 100 percent renewable energy economy by 2045. At present, aviation\u2019s the only sector omitted from this statewide commitment. <\/span><\/p>\n

But that\u2019s changing, too — at least at the global level. In 2020, the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation comes into effect. <\/span><\/p>\n

CORSIA binds all airlines to achieving carbon neutral growth starting in 2020. That will be followed by ever greater ambition by CORSIA in later years to further reduce global aviation carbon emissions <\/span><\/p>\n

Hawaii already has a foot firmly placed in the future. Does Hawaiian?<\/span><\/p>\n

Editor’s note: Stewart Taggart is\u00a0a Hawaiian Airlines shareholder.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hawaiian Airlines offers a lot to like. It has amusing safety videos, its planes arrive on time and nobody gets beat up. That\u2019s the good news. The bad news, however, is Hawaiian appears rather lackluster regarding carbon emissions. While the state of Hawaii\u2019s committed to 100 percent renewable energy by 2045, the commitment excludes aviation. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":1090000,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[183,182],"tags":[],"post_format":[],"project":[],"coauthors":[31540],"class_list":["post-1240528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-community-voice"],"slp_mobile_featured_image":{"id":1090000,"href":"https:\/\/www.civilbeat.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1090000","image_path":"https:\/\/d1l18ops95qbzp.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/2015\/06\/Hawaiian-Airlines.jpg","caption":"A Hawaiian Airlines jet at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu."},"acf":[],"slp_coauthors":[{"display_name":"Stewart Taggart","user_nicename":"stewart-taggart","author_link":"https:\/\/www.civilbeat.org\/author\/stewart-taggart\/"}],"slp_acf":{"post_twitter_card_type":"summary_large_image","post_twitter_card_description":"","cb_article_type":"community","cb_related_logo_image":false,"cb_related_logo_link":"","cb_related_sponsor_logo_image":false,"cb_related_sponsor_url":"","cb_related_sponsor_text":"","cb_article_footnotes":"","dynamic_html":"","shins":false,"cb_inc_byline":true,"cb_custom_thumb_caption":true,"cb_author_contributor_type":"internal","cb_excerpt_type":"","incsides":false,"photo_caption":""},"slp_primary_category":{"id":182,"name":"Community Voice"},"apple_news_notices":[],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Hawaiian Airlines Needs To Commit To Renewable Energy","url":"http:\/\/www.civilbeat.org\/2017\/07\/hawaiian-airlines-needs-to-commit-to-renewable-energy\/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.civilbeat.org\/2017\/07\/hawaiian-airlines-needs-to-commit-to-renewable-energy\/"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/d1l18ops95qbzp.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/2015\/06\/Hawaiian-Airlines-150x150.jpg","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/d1l18ops95qbzp.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/2015\/06\/Hawaiian-Airlines.jpg"},"articleSection":"Commentary","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Stewart Taggart"}],"creator":["Stewart Taggart"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"天美视频","logo":""},"keywords":[],"dateCreated":"2017-07-06T10:01:43Z","datePublished":"2017-07-06T10:01:43Z","dateModified":"2017-07-06T10:01:43Z"},"rendered":"