Greening Up The Airport

"With a constellation of regional airports, including one of the country's busiest, LAX, Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) will play a crucial role in the greening of air travel in the United States. But in L.A., air travel is just a single piece in one of the most complex transportation puzzles in the country, where goods movement and car traffic clogs up vast and varied terrain. In the following VerdeXchange News interview, LAWA Executive Director Gina Marie Lindsey discusses the opportunities for sustainable air travel offered by efficiently managed air traffic and integrated ground access."

VXN: "What efforts are currently underway, or being considered, by LAWA and other metropolitan airports around the world to mitigate and reduce emissions?"

GML: "Aircrafts are the largest source of carbon emissions in our world. We are trying to reduce our contribution by encouraging new aircraft to use our airports. Aircraft manufacturers need to take some credit for the work that they've done to improve the technology and reduce emissions and fuel usage for their aircraft. That's the largest single contributor, and it's the toughest thing we're dealing with. The airport can, however, try to create a ground environment that lets those aircraft get in the air and out of the air as fast as possible so they're not spending time circling, waiting for a runway to free up, and they're not spending time waiting on the taxiway to take off."