Estimating the US airline carbon footprint

The airline industry decided to embrace going “carbon neutral” by 2050 – an unreachable goal in the view of many. As one wag commented, Zoom and other online meeting Apps have already reduced carbon pollution from air travel by more than the airline will accomplish in the next 20 years. What do US airline carbon footprint calculations show us?

Here’s how the math works for the calculations we are sharing. Jet-A is about 87% carbon and 13% hydrogen by weight. The carbon inside a gallon of Jet-A (weighing 6.7 pounds) weighs 5.829 pounds. By taking gallons of fuel consumed we can multiply that by 5.829 to gets pounds of CO2 produced.