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Through PBN we can save about 182 litres of fuel and 575kg of CO2 per flight. Reducing the weight of our aircraft also reduces fuel burn. One initiative to minimise load is to reduce the amount of paper carried onboard – including flight documents such as flight plans, voyage reports, aircraft manuals and the documentation required by our pilots – which together weigh about 23kg. In 2014, we have replaced them with two-kilogramme tablets, known as electronic flight bags. This paperless initiative currently saves two litres of fuel and 6kg of carbon on each flight. In 2017 we will be going digital across many other aspects of flight operations, including:Electronic flight bag operational specifications approvalImplementation of e-aeronautical chartsConversion of PDF company flight operations manuals to XML formatAutomated management reportsDigitalisation of all flight operations administration formsIntroduction of individual flight crew safety and fuel efficiency appAircraft and cabin virtual reality trainingTable 1 illustrates further fuel-saving/carbon-reducing initiatives and their impact.In 2016 we reduced CO2 emissions by more than 30,000 tonnes or the equivalent of nearly 149,000 trees. This represents about 5 of AirAsia’s annual emissions. We expect these savings to continue growing each year as we deepen and expand our efforts through our newly-established business sustainability and environmental teams. In addition to energy consumption and fuel management, future programmes will also consider other important issues such as environmental policy and management systems, operational eco-efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions. ■ABOUT THE AUTHORTony Fernandes is the Group CEO of AirAsia. Before going into aviation, he was Vice President of Warner Music South East Asia. Tony and several partners founded Tune Air Sdn Bhd in 2001 with a vision to democratise air travel by offering low fares and high-quality services. They bought the then loss-making AirAsia for a token MYR1 (about 23 US cents) and agreed to take on the airline’s MYR40 million (US$9 million) debt. AirAsia repaid that debt in less than two years, in spite of the extremely challenging post-September 11 2001 environment, growing from two Boeing 737-300 aircraft, one destination and a staff of 250 into Asia’s largest low-cost carrier by passengers in just over a decade.Above: Example of performance-based navigation at Kuching International Airport, Malaysia. Yellow line is flight path from conventional procedure; shorter green path derived using performance-based navigation.Top left: Airbus A320 wingtip “Sharklet”Below: Tony FernandesAVIATION 115
