Carrier rolls out ‘green’ flights plan

Kenyan carrier Fly 748 has invested in flight planning systems to help optimise flight plans, cut fuel consumption, and reduce carbon emissions into the environment.

The United Nations (UN) contacted Fly 748 to pioneer the Carbon Emissions Programs (CEP) to reduce carbon emissions.

With emissions reduction and sustainability a pressing issue for airlines, flight planning can play a significant role in the quest for greener aviation.

Optimising aircraft trajectories, reducing holding patterns and smoothing out descents are some of the ways to cut aircraft emissions.

Fly 748 started carbon emissions programme in November 2021, pioneered by two DHC-100 aircraft. A Q-400 plane was later added in February.

“748 established an environmental management system which was run by an experienced expatriate from Canada in order to track and measure the carbon emissions,” said the airline’s managing director Moses Mwangi in an interview with Shipping and Logistics.

Through the system, Mr Mwangi says that 748 Air Services came up with ways to reduce the carbon emissions, one of which was pilot training.

“This is where we say most gains were made as our highly trained pilots were able to reduce fuel consumption by five percent when the methods used to reduce carbon emissions were implemented in our scheduled flight services over the month of January,” he said.

“These immediate gains shows that it’s not just caring for the environment but we are also able to improve on efficiency and thus our bottom line," he says.