Big is not always best

On a homeward flight from Dubai on a new Airbus A380 — the world's first double-decker commercial jet liner, with 509 seats — I find myself sitting among a small number of other passengers. I am told there are 242 people on board. The aircraft is under 50% full, in the middle of the summer holidays. The size of the plane is not the issue in itself, though that carries its own environmental concerns. The problem is utilisation.

How many flights navigate around the world at any moment with large numbers of empty seats? It is troubling that an aircraft built for mass passenger loads is operating at under 50% capacity. If you burn a very similar amount of fuel whether the plane is full or nearly empty, then every empty seat represents a pointless increase in the carbon cost per person carried.

There must be a smarter approach. What if airlines were charged a levy on empty seats on a sliding scale — a charge applied if, say, 80% of seats were empty, reducing on a per-seat basis as that percentage falls, with full flights paying nothing? This would incentivise airlines to reduce services where demand does not exist, or to lower prices closer to departure times to fill remaining seats — improving overall carbon efficiency without requiring any new technology.

The idea is rough-edged and would need proper policy design. But the principle seems clear: if we are serious about reducing aviation's environmental impact in the short term, why not start by ensuring that the flights that do operate carry as many people as possible? Or must we simply accept that commercial considerations will always come first, even above the environment and our collective future?