This chapter gives an explication of the way in which the airline industry performs and reports on Corporate Sustainability and Responsibility (CSR). The connected case study (see Chap. 11) uses Air France-KLM as example. It becomes clear that airlines’ attitudes towards CSR depend on their geographic location, business model, and business performance. Their reporting on CSR is generally of lower quality and mainly relates to environmental issues, while social and ethical issues are apparently either considered of lesser importance or are more difficult to operationalise. Concerning the environmental impact, for example, it appears that airlines with a green public image tend to score low on a climate change index. This finding evokes concern that airlines might use CSR reporting mainly for PR purposes. This chapter includes a section on ethical reflection on CSR in the airline industry and concludes that a more fundamental approach to the issue of unsustainable growth of aviation, restricted volume growth, needs active and robust government guidance and cooperation with the airline industry.
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KLM has revealed the plan to downsize the full-freight cargo fleet in Schiphol Airport, for that reason the company requires to explore the consequences of moving the cargo transported by the full freighters into the bellies of the passenger flights. In this study, the authors analyze the implications of this decision by considering the variability of the load factors and the impact that replacing old aircraft might have. The study addresses how the transition towards the belly operation should impact the current operation of KLM at Schiphol. Our study show that the replacement of old aircraft with new 787s and 777s will have significant effect on the cargo capacity of the company. The results rise the discussion on future problems to be faced and how to make the transition from full freighter to belly operation.
Nowadays the main airports throughout the world are suffering because their capacity are getting close to saturation due to the air traffic which is still increasing besides the economic crisis and oil prices. In addition, the forecasts predict an increase in air traffic of at least 3.6% until 2020. This situation makes very important to come up with solutions to alleviate capacity congestions in the main airports throughout the world. Capacity has been perceived traditionally as the factor to be addressed in airport systems and it is faced through a technical perspective. In this paper we propose to change the mind-set and view capacity of airport systems taking other factors than pure technical ones. The discussion is illustrated with the example of Schiphol Airport.
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