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Should frequent flyers pay for the decarbonization of the air industry?

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Researchers are proposing a frequent flyer tax to pay for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the airline industry. A new paper from the International Council on Clean Transportation proposed the tax as a way to fund some of the $121 billion that needs to get invested every year to decarbonize flying. "Varying the levy based on flying frequency focuses the tax burden on wealthier frequent flyers and helps ensure that people with lower incomes are not priced out of air travel because of climate policy," the study's authors, Xinyi Sola Zheng and Dan Rutherford, wrote. A sliding fee for flights beginning at $9 for the second flight and $177 for their twentieth in a given year would raise $121 billion -- versus a flat tax of $25 per ticket for all flights. For the study's authors, the tax is a way to avoid penalizing people in lower income brackets and shifting the load to the wealthiest 10 percent of the world's population. Not only would the revenues come from wea...
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Autonomous aviation startup Xwing hits $400M valuation after latest funding round

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  The safety pilot has his hands off the controls during an Xwing demonstration flight. Image Credits: Xwing Xwing has scored another win two months after it completed its first gate-to-gate autonomous demonstration flight of a commercial cargo aircraft. The company said Thursday it has raised $40 million at a post-money valuation of $400 million. The company is setting its sights on expansion — not only tripling its engineering team, but eventually running regular fully unmanned commercial cargo flights. Xwing has been developing a technology stack to convert aircraft, including a widely used Cessna Grand Caravan 208B, to function autonomously. But it’s had to solve a few problems first: “the perception problem, the planning problem and the control problem,” Xwing founder Marc Piette explained to TechCrunch. The company has come up with a whole suite of solutions to solve for these problems, including integrating lidar, radar and cameras on the plane; retrofitting the servomotors ...
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New double-decker style seat design on planes could let all passengers lie flat

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Being able to lie completely flat on a plane is the travelling dream, but until now it is reserved for those able to fly business class. But a new design by a start-up company has created a double-decker style cabin featuring two tiers of seats, which would mean every passenger could have a lie-flat seat. Zephyr Aerospace initially came up with the plans to give passengers more space, but the concept would also allow travellers more isolation, which could give travellers more confidence in flying following the coronavirus crisis. The design means standard plane cabins could accommodate two levels of passengers using the same amount space meaning holidaymakers wouldn’t have to sit shoulder-to-shoulder with other passengers. Photographs of the bunk bed-style plans reveal that passengers could sit above and below each other in rows, accessing the top level by pulling out a cleverly concealed staircase. The seats would be built in rows of 2-4-2 across the cabin, so airlines wouldn’t ha...
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