Philippine airline industry and the environment

Environmental management in the Philippines over these past few years has focused on regulating production industries, such as manufacturing and mining. However, there has been an increasing interest in the environmental effects of the service industry (Goedkoop, van Halen, te Riele, & Rommens, 1998). And this industry comprises a variety of activities, from restaurants to hospitals to financial institutions.

The service industry merits its attention because of its large size and consequently the potential for environmental impacts (both negative and positive). And one of the service industries that will be discussed in this paper is the Airline Industry. According to the International Civil Aviation Organization and the Air Transport Bureau, the aviation industry impacts the environment in a way that aircraft engines emit noise pollution, gases and particulate emissions. It also contributes to climate change and global dimming. The toxic emissions produced by airports and aircraft are chiefly six pollutants: nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, ground-level ozone, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, and sulphur dioxide (Whitelegg and Williams, 2000). These emissions have a definitive impact on the already growing problem of global warming as well as being very deadly to people exposed to them.

In this study, the researchers will have to identify the positive and the negative environmental impacts that can be found in the airline industry in the local and global aspect and how could the industry minimize these negative impacts. This paper is significant because the airline industry gives a positive economic impact to the community. Business travelers are important to airlines because they are more likely to travel several times throughout the year and they tend to purchase the upgraded services that have higher margins for the airline. Airlines have also made significant progress in addressing climate change and are continuing to do so while being driven to be fuel efficient. According to the IATA, the airline industry has already improved fuel efficiency by 70% over the last four decades and new, more fuel efficient aircraft on order will replace aging, gas guzzling jets and increase fuel efficiency again by 25%.

According to the report of the British Airline Pilots’ Association (BALPA), the airline industry is believed to be a “ dirty” industry; that it is wasteful of resources and is responsible for the major threat of ozone depletion by the generation of greenhouse gases. But aviation, like all forms of transport, does pollute but its impact on the environment is exaggerated and the solutions put forward don’t address the environmental impact. Thus the attempt to penalize the industry and its flying public is misguided. The most damaging effect of aviation, in terms of its pollution of the upper atmosphere is best dealt with by emissions trading. This study focuses on adopting a global perspective of the Airline Industry because air transport itself operates globally and its impacts on the atmosphere, particularly those that could result in climate change, will have worldwide consequences and the Airline Industry’s contribution to the local and global environmental conservation.