ABSTRACT
Air transport generates many economic benefits including employment, trade, tourism, investment, knowledge transfer, increased productivity and competitiveness, greater mobility and a wide range of multiplier effects. Air transport also offers important social benefits: faster and easier access to relatives and friends, to a wider range of leisure experiences, to international educational opportunities, and to cultural and sporting events. Hence air transport is regarded as an important ‘engine’ of economic development and has become a popular, rapidly growing industry (Bishop and Grayling 2003; Boon and Wit 2005; OEF 1999, 2002, 2006; DfT 2003a, 2003b). Yet the benefits of air transport are accompanied by a range of environmental impacts; this fact, together with increasing public awareness of environmental issues in general, means that there are now unprecedented levels of popular and scientific concern about the environmental impacts of flying. Aircraft emissions contribute to climate change and to local air pollution, and aircraft noise affects communities near to airports. In addition, airports have a range of environmental impacts including air pollution, ecological modification, water use and pollution, and the production of other wastes. Concerns about aviation environmental impacts are already acute and are likely to become yet more pressing as demand for air transport grows. Consequently, environmental issues in general – and the issue of climate change in particular – increasingly constitute a significant business risk to aviation and could drastically affect the growth and development of the industry.
