Economic-environmental trade-offs in long-term airline fleet planning

We examine the balancing of economic and environmental goals in long-term airline fleet planning. A multi-objective linear programming model optimizes fleet composition, fleet development, and fleet employment for a 10-year planning horizon. Model inputs include flight plan data, operational, technical, and cost parameters, existing fleet aircraft, and the availability of new, more efficient aircraft. The model determines trade-offs between an economically and an environmentally optimal fleet plan depending on user-defined weightings. Varying these weightings provides alternative Pareto-optimal fleet plans. An example for a major European airline shows that it would have to deviate by approximately 3% from its economic optimum to achieve a 6% improvement in the environmental goal. The study provides insights for policy makers when setting environmental targets for airlines and developing mechanisms to encourage environmental commitment. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.