I posted a week or so ago about the third in a series of ‘ASPIRE’ flights that took place across the Pacific Ocean. Following on from demonstrations of the ‘perfect flight’ by Air New Zealand and Qantas, United Airlines performed a flight last Friday using every possible air traffic control and operational efficiency innovation available. While each of the little savings is small, when added together, the flight saved over 6000 litres of Jet-A1 fuel and therefore nearly 15,000 kilos of carbon dioxide emissions.

And to top it all off, the plane was met by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger when it landed in San Francisco. He said that the use of such emissions reduction techniques should become the norm – something I wholeheartedly agree with. It is no time to start terminating such progress (bad joke in there… well, it is Friday).