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The Future Of Air Travel

Introduction

As the holiday travel season moves into top gear, most passengers will be unaware of the fact that the heavily-booked flight that they are traveling on will most likely not be making any money for the airline that is operating it. As the fuel prices get higher, airlines are suffering either by adding to the price of airfare or sacrificing some of their profits by paying more for fuel to keep the cost of air travel attractive. But when the prices get too high for fuel the airfare will be going up with it, and less people will be flying because of the eventual affordability of air travel. Then we will be searching for the new energy resource to power flight. Will hydrogen fuel cells do the trick? But would not a hydrogen powered plane with fifty-thousand pounds of hydrogen turn into a flying hydrogen bomb? What about the environmental effect of civil aircraft? Is airline travel a major contributing factor to global warming?
Aircraft manufacturers are spending billions of dollars trying to create new commercial aircraft in the name of ‘efficiency'. Boeing is running against Airbus in creating the more favorable style of future air travel for both the airlines and the passengers. The major jet engine manufacturers, Rolls-Royce, General Electric, and Pratt&Whitney, are also in the race for the creation of the most fuel- efficient jet engines to power these massive aircraft. However, the old aircraft are still polluting. Those massive jets are side-by-side with the automobile in being a major contribution to global warming. What are the airlines doing about it? Is the government making restrictions on the usage of old commercial aircraft like the DC-8/9/10 which can be seen with the naked eye spilling dark exhaust into our atmosphere?

The End of Cheap Oil
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