It is a peculiarity of the travel industry that, just as everyone else is winding down for the holiday season, we are at our busiest time of the year. Over the next few days, millions of people will fly to see loved ones all over the world. Then they will fly back again. Check-in agents, cabin crews, pilots, air traffic controllers, airport staff and all parts of the industry will be working hard to make holiday travel as easy as possible – despite having to grapple with the weather.

But behind the scenes, there are projects underway that not only will reduce delays, but also help the environment. One of the difficulties the aviation industry has in flying from one place to another is having to navigate around normally closed military airspace. The US Department for Transportation has, for the last couple of holiday seasons, worked with the Department of Defence to open up some sections of military airspace, in order that flights can have more direct routings. These so-called “Holiday Express Lanes” in the sky can have a massive impact on the distance flown and the fuel burnt. In fact, US secretary of transport Mary Peters suggested in a recent speech that just one route over California shaved some 99,000 miles off flights last Christmas and New Year. My question is: why can’t we find a way to open more of these routes for more of the year?

Norway’s national air navigation service provider Avinor is also getting in on the act, with two special “Green Routes” for Christmas flights from the UK to Lapland to visit Santa Claus. These more direct flight tracks will save potentially 1,000 nautical miles over the same flights last year – reducing CO2 by an estimated 15 – 20 tonnes each day.

And my old friends at Air New Zealand couldn’t resist pointing out the potential damage that reindeer… um… emissions can cause, as they pull Santa’s sleigh around the world. For example, a large moose (which I assume to be fairly similar to a reindeer in emissions) can produce the equivalent of two long-haul flight’s worth of greenhouse gas each year. Anyway, the Air New Zealand video is rather amusing:

Season’s Greetings from the team at enviro.aero!

– Image of Lapland (Santa’s home, don’t you know) from Flickr user mararie