It only takes a glance at the news to see the effects of climate change all over the map these days. Typical of our times, there is a lot of disagreement on the issue. But after a recent getaway spent exploring the Galápagos Islands with National Geographic Expeditions, Eric and I returned home sure of one thing: If the ecology of the archipelago that inspired the theory of evolution doesn’t make you concerned for the precarious state of our planet, you may need to look a little deeper into your soul.
The two of us are among many thinking about the environmental impact of the aviation industry and, in our case, how Tradewind Aviation can take steps to reduce it – now and in the future. As the development of electric planes takes off, we want to be part of the transformation, just as Tesla has been for ground transportation.
The Now: Carbon Offset Programs
Sustainability has actually been on our minds for quite a while, and we are fortunate that the nature of our business enables Tradewind to fly smaller, very efficient aircraft like Pilatus PC-12s and Citation CJ3s, which have a low impact on the environment.
Just last fall, we launched a new Carbon Offset Program, offering Tradewind clients the opportunity to offset the carbon emissions of their flight activity through premiums. The offsets – totally voluntary, available at booking, and applicable to scheduled service, private charter flights, and the Goodspeed Flight Card program – go to TerraPass, a social enterprise headquartered in Houston that uses proceeds from partner companies like ours to fund greenhouse gas reduction projects, ranging from wind farms to methane digesters.
The Carbon Offset Program has been well received by Tradewind passengers, who are impressed not only by its promise but also with its cost. An hour of flight time on a Pilatus PC-12 – about as long it takes us to fly from White Plains to Nantucket, or San Juan, Puerto Rico, to St. Jean, St. Barths – is offset for just $7. That’s mist in the bucket for our clientele, as we say in Connecticut. (Well, some of us, anyway...)
The Future: Electric Air Transportation
While electric air transportation still has a way to go, it is getting there. Large aircraft that travel long distances for major airlines may one day be able to go electric, but perhaps not in our lifetimes. It’ll take significant technological breakthroughs to surmount their energy-to-weight ratio: An empty Boeing 777 weighs 297,300 pounds, after all. Just imagine the size of the batteries it would take to lift something like that.
Instead, developers aspiring toward commercially feasible electric planes are focused on the shorter and lighter end of the market, with Jetsons-like convenience being the dream. Helicopters powered by gas turbine engines have seen success there already, but they’re generally limited to major metropolitan areas like Los Angeles or New York City, where quick hops from Manhattan to JFK, say, work just fine. Throw in driving time for drop offs and pickups in more rural areas, however, and the environmental impact of helicopter flight rises while the environmental value proposition drops.
A Market Ready for Electric
Tradewind’s market is different. Our turboprops are sized to carry a maximum of 8 passengers on routes of 100 to 300 miles, making an effective energy-to-weight ratio easier to attain. They can also take off and land at more than 5,000 local airports across the country, reducing the average time it takes our clients to get from their homes to their cabin seats to around 30 minutes – vastly less than the typical 3 hours passengers spend getting to and departing from commercial flights at major airports. What’s more, our client base is interested in sustainable travel, as revealed by their response to our Carbon Offset Program. Taken together, the value proposition for our market to go electric is already there.
New technologies tend to work best when rolled out in markets whose clientele can afford them. Costs go down eventually, of course, but that can take a while. In the meantime, as a dear friend of ours often said: “Tradewind is in the service business, not the aviation business.” Customer satisfaction is the main driver for us, and looking ahead, it’s critical that we can guarantee the same level of service which we have built our reputation on providing for any electric aircraft we ultimately incorporate into our fleet. We want to be on the leading edge, that is, not the bleeding edge.
When a better option to the efficient turboprop fleet we’ve spent 20 years assembling organically comes along, we’ll jump on it. Until then, we’ve seen a lot of companies come and go in the aviation industry, and they’re usually throwing money at things on their way out the exit. It’s a complicated business: stumble rolling out new things, and your clients will go somewhere else.