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AirAsia X Berhad • Annual Report 2014
Sustainability Report
Electronic Flight Bag (EFB).
As of December 2014, AirAsia X has become one of the
first airlines in the region to receive approval from DCA
Malaysia to use Portable Electronic Devices (Apple iPads)
as navigation and reference tools. By not having hardcopy
charts on board, we are able to reduce the weight of
our aircraft as manuals weigh about 55kg. On average,
every kg of additional weight on board the aircraft burns
approximately 0.15kg of additional fuel. Removing the
manuals translates to a reduction in fuel burn of up to
8.25kg per sector. As an added environmental bonus, the
initiative reduces the amount of paper used to support our
operations.
FlySmart with Airbus.
This application, available on the EFB, enables our crew
to do performance calculations to optimise our take-off
thrust. Although thrust reduction may actually increase
fuel consumption slightly, this offset by considerably lower
engine maintenance costs due to reduced engine wear.
Also, taking off at reduced thrust minimises our noise
emission at take-off.
One Engine Taxi-In.
The Technical & Development team has worked closely
with Rolls-Royce, Airbus and DCA Malaysia to introduce
and implement the One Engine Taxi-In initiative. When
conditions permit, and at the commander’s discretion,
crew will shut down one engine during taxi-in to reduce
fuel burn and, therefore, carbon emissions. The ability to
do this, however, depends on environmental conditions,
aircraft weight and traffic congestion among others.
Also, DCA Malaysia’s approval obtained in December
2014 is currently limited to a few pilots and only in
Kuala Lumpur. In 2015, we will look at broadening the
scope of this approval. Theoretically, this initiative
should save up to 12.5kg of fuel per minute of taxi-ing.
Currently, each flight can perform the one engine taxi-in
for approximately three minutes, saving about 37.5kg of
fuel per flight.
In terms of noise reduction, AirAsia X adopts and complies with all noise abatement procedures as required by the authorities in countries where we operate. However, for Busan
departures, our aircraft (and many other carriers as well) are regularly flagged for exceeding the accepted noise level. Following a thorough analysis, our Technical & Development team
has designed special departure procedures in Busan to avoid the areas sensitive to noise as prescribed by the airport authorities.
New fuel saving initiatives include:
