For the airline industry to meet the goals the European Commission (and others) have set for it, we therefore ought to be looking to shape the industry such that the focus is on the reduction of passenger numbers to the degree necessary to bring the industry’s emissions down to the target levels. Reducing passenger numbers will only be achieved by the provision of alternatives by way of alternate transport infrastructure, as well as ICT based technologies that provide the means for highly effective human communication across distances.
Video conferencing makes a viable alternative to business flying – that much is now clear even to IATA. Indeed, the organisation not only reports the pain of video conferencing’s influence on revenue, it also calls itself for it use. The Terms of Reference for IATA’s “Aviation fuel data standards group” states that “Interim Meetings (of the group) may be held by telephone or video conference, or such other appropriate means that IATA may decide.”
Political will required
Whether the political will exists to shape the airline industry to such a degree remains in doubt, even though such efforts would uniquely allow the industry to meet its emissions targets. According to the industry’s own representative body, reducing passenger numbers is the most effective strategy to keep airline emissions below 2005 baseline levels. Video conferencing ought to be strongly considered and encouraged in order to provide a useful alternative to face-to-face business meetings. In the future, airline industry total carrying capacity should only be allowed to increase further if future technology innovation (including low-carbon fuel sources) becomes available, providing headroom for growth decoupled from net emissions increases.
Meanwhile it is also worth remembering the music industry’s failure to grasp the opportunity provided by digital content. Perhaps the most important question for the airline industry is really whether it can figure out a way to embrace the promise of video conferencing in a novel way such that its use becomes a strategic element of its strategy, rather than a threat.
Simon Perry is a principal associate analyst at Quocirca, specialising in the implications of environmental sustainability on business models.
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Videoconferencing use is and will continue to grow in by people who would otherwise travel on business. This in part reflects corporate objectives of trying to contain travel spending. At the same time business travellers are finding that cutbacks in travel is having a harmful effect on managing existing relationships and projects overseas as well as an even more harmful effect on developing new business opportunities overseas and some companies are already relaxing travel policies which had been tightened significantly over the past 12 months. It is also likely that overtime more sophisticated online collaboration as permitted by microsoft tools will actually lead to increased business travel as a direct result of electronic collaboration by workers within individual countries and / or between workers in different countries.
Vidoconferencing is only one form of communicating that can reduce the need for business travel in the short term - but some of the more sophisticated technology which microsoft has developed will in all proability actually make the need to travel and meet each other more important as workers push the limits of online collaboration to its limits and need to understand the levels of each others capabilities at first hand.
Most often people think of video conference as a reference to a meeting as opposed to a conference. The typical meeting would last up to one business day. Conferences typically more than one day. Conferences should include any multi-day event such as corporate training - which I teach via web conferencing ! So the potential impact goes out even further. In multi-day events the attendees usually rent cars or ride public transportation back and forth from the hotel. Extend that out to inlclude additional "drive time" for dinner and entertainment.