Summary
- flynas has reduced carbon emissions by 161,000 tons in 18 months, akin to planting 6.44 million trees.
- The airline’s modernization efforts with Airbus A320neos have led to a 7,200-ton reduction in carbon emissions per thirty days.
- flynas is specializing in fuel efficiency, digital transformation, and sustainable initiatives to realize its sustainability goals.
As airlines worldwide pursue zero-emission sustainability goals, they find that switching to new-generation aircraft is the quickest and most straightforward strategy to reduce fuel consumption and cut CO2 emissions. A living proof is flynas, the Saudi low-cost carrier now reaping the sustainability rewards from its fleet of Airbus A320neo aircraft.
A 3-track approach at flynas
This week, Saudi airline flynas has reported significant ends in its journey towards zero-emission aviation and meeting the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s reduction targets of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. What’s already impressive is the outcomes flynas has achieved during the last 18 months, cutting carbon emissions across the corporate by 161,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), which the airline equated to planting 6.44 million trees.
Photo: RIK Miheyeu | Shutterstock
The low-cost carrier is following a three-track approach to its sustainability efforts: maximizing fuel efficiency, digital transformation and adopting initiatives with a sustainable impact on the environment, society and economy. On the primary track, flynas has been aggressively modernizing its single-aisle fleet by bringing in the most recent Airbus A320neos to renew the fleet and reduce reliance on the present A320ceos.
The flynas fleet has 64 aircraft, including 47 Airbus A320neos, 13 A320ceos and 4 A330-300 widebodies. With around 73% of its fleet being the new-generation A320neos, flynas is reaping the advantages of reduced fuel consumption and lower emissions from operating the brand-new aircraft as they arrive. With the shift away from the older A320-200s gaining momentum, flynas has cut a median of seven,200 tons of carbon emissions per thirty days, the equivalent of planting 288,000 trees every month.
The A320neo is essential to the success to this point
The A320neo Family has been highly successful in meeting the promise of reduced fuel burn and carbon emissions, and the airline is seeing fuel savings of around 18%, which it says cuts carbon emissions by 8% per 100 cycles per minute in comparison with previous generation aircraft.
Photo: Captured Blinks / Shutterstock
The airline goals to phase out the A320ceos aircraft by the tip of 2024, allowing flynas to double its sustainability and environmental protection performance while reducing its CO2 emissions. It is usually working with international technology providers to observe, analyze, and reduce fuel consumption, which has helped it improve the efficiency of its flight operations.
The link between digitalization and sustainability shouldn’t be as obvious, but flynas points to issuing digital tickets and boarding passes since pioneering the change in Saudi Arabia in 2007, in addition to accepting payments online and allowing ticket costs to be paid for in installments as being on its second-track. It was also the primary to make use of smart devices for cockpit publications to cut back paper consumption and weight to save lots of fuel and has similarly adopted paperless solutions in its maintenance, engineering and logistics functions.
Photo: flynas
The third track is akin to the ESG (environment, social and governance) goals so widely adopted by corporations today because flynas is concentrated on recent initiatives which have a sustainable impact on the environment, society and the economy. These initiatives are done in partnership with a very powerful institutions in Saudi Arabia and globally, including recycling and using more environmentally friendly consumer products.
The airline has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Saudi Investment Recycling Company to explore opportunities for adopting best-practice and effective recycling solutions to treat waste from its operations, equivalent to oils, plastics, batteries, etc., consistent with the Saudi Green Initiative.
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