Sustainability
Aviation connects people, countries and cultures around the world. Its economic importance is enormous: it creates employment and ensures the fast and reliable flow of goods. At the same time, aviation has undesirable effects on climate and the environment. We see it as our responsibility to reduce the environmental impact of our business activities to a minimum – in the air and on the ground.
Our main targets
Our climate protection strategy
Fleet renewal
The most powerful lever in our ambition to reduce our CO2 emissions is a modern aircraft fleet. We harmonized our fleet to an Airbus-only fleet, decreasing the CO2-emission per passenger by 46% and in 2019, we rejuvenated our long-haul fleet with more fuel efficient models, consuming 3.1% less fuel.
On top of that, Brussels Airlines will phase in brand new a320neo aircraft in 2023, which will allow a noise contour reduction of 50% and reduce a fuel use and CO2-emissions by 11% per flight.
Improved infrastructure
The European airspace is extremely crowded and fragmented, with all countries having control of their part of the airspace, which means there are multiple Air Traffic Control centres (e.g. Skeyes in Brussels) working alongside each other. The Single European Sky (SES) program aims to create one single European controlled sky. This would drive down fuel burn, improve services, reduce delays, and costs and generally improve the efficiency of the European air traffic management. The program would allow for better procedures and flight profiles that will allow to fly 10% more fuel-efficient and thus create a CO2 reduction of 10%. Together with A4E (Airlines for Europe), the Lufthansa Group, including Brussels Airlines, continues to lobby for an improved use of airspace.
At Brussels Airlines, we believe that intermodal connectivity is a major asset. Approximately 80% of CO2 generated by air traffic is emitted on flights > 1500 km. There are hardly any mobility alternatives for these routes. But for some nearby destinations there are alternatives that are just as convenient as air travel, or here the combination between rail and air transport can be a suitable option. That is why the connection we offer between Brussels Airport and four nearby destinations in the Netherlands is always by train. We also recommend our passengers to come to the airport by train or by bus whenever possible, just like we recommend it to our own staff by offering a free public transport pass to all our employees.
To work in a more efficient way and to better serve our customers we need airport infrastructures adapted to our needs. For that, we work close together with Brussels Airport Company, who have set out a clear strategy for the future “Brussels Airport 2040”.
Emission Trading System (ETS)
Per year Brussels Airlines pays about €10 million euro to the European Emissions Trading System (ETS). The ETS is an trading system that was developed to set a cap on the total amount of greenhouse gasses that can be emitted by installations covered by the system. The money we pay is used to help the industry and power sector to meet the innovation and investment challenges of the low-carbon transition. The downside is that ETS only covers air traffic in Europe, favoring non-European competitors. Therefore, we lobby for a global solution that can be found in CORSIA. Next to that it is only possible to really set an overall cap on greenhouse gas emissions if not only air transport, but all ways of transport would be included in the system.
Product adaptations
With lighter seats and lighter catering trolleys on both our short and long haul fleet, we were able to significantly lower the weight of the aircraft and as a result, its fuel consumption. Both the inflight magazine and the on board duty free shop were removed, and all printed newspapers have been replaced by e-newspapers lowering the weight of the aircraft on top of avoiding waste. We also removed the disposable pillows in the Economy Class of our long-haul flights. This lighter interior counts for 7.9% less fuel used per passenger.
All our aircraft are cleaned using the dry washing technique saving up to 2000 litres of water per aircraft wash. Aside from that, the fresh food served on short haul flights is packed with recyclable materials by Foodmaker. Unsold food is kept on board for the next flight to limit food waste as much as possible. We continuously optimize the loading ratios on short and long haul flights to avoid unnecessary food waste and we have replaced all plastic stirrers by wooden ones. Also on the ground, we are also scaling down our impact on the environment by, among other things, removing all plastic bottles from our lounges in Brussels (since 2018).
Together with Brussels Airport, we have signed a waste charter with FostPlus aiming to double the recycling rates of all waste streams at the airport.
We use 100% renewable energy in our building since 2015 and light our buildings with LED lighting since 2018.
