In Sydney airport's crowded international terminal, passengers make last-minute passport checks or fret over toddlers in pushchairs as they wait in the snaking queue to check in for the 23-hour flight to London.
But few of the 400 passengers crammed on to each jumbo jet taking off over Botany Bay ever consider the environmental impact of their 17,000km intercontinental trip.
Passengers will consume at least 1,600 meals in plastic containers, but each plane travelling to London will guzzle more than 200 tonnes of jet fuel and pump out more than 500 tonnes of carbon dioxide, as well as other greenhouse gases.
"Beneath the glamorous high-flying image of aviation is a grossly polluting industry," said Paul de Zylva, head of Friends of the Earth in London.
Environmentalists say airlines rate as one of the most polluting forms of transport, with 16,000 commercial jets producing over 600 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year.
Climate change, caused by greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, is deemed by many experts to be the biggest long-term threat to mankind.
They predict rapidly rising temperatures prompting higher sea levels, devastating floods and droughts.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates aviation causes 3.5 percent of man-made global warming and that figure could rise to 15 percent by 2050.
NASA scientists say condensation trails from jet exhausts create cirrus clouds that may trap heat rising from the earth's surface. This could account for nearly all the warming over the US between 1975 and 1994.
And air travel is booming.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA), the body which represents the world's airlines, accepts that aircraft cause environmental damage.
"Every minute we can save in flight times has a positive impact on the environment and on our costs," said IATA spokesman Anthony Concil.
Despite the industry's heavy environmental toll, guidelines on international aircraft emissions were excluded from the Kyoto protocol on climate change and aviation fuel is tax exempt.
Aerospace firms have made huge leaps forward, with commercial jets now 70 percent more fuel efficient per passenger kilometer than they were 40 years ago, thanks to better engines, lighter materials and aerodynamic designs.
And cost-obsessed carriers are continuously searching for ways to use capacity better, find more direct flight paths and cut congestion in order to trim the hefty fuel bills which make up 25 percent of airline operating costs.
Most discount airlines have young, more fuel-efficient fleets and newer airlines in regions such as Asia have leap-frogged older technologies to buy new planes.
Dirt-cheap airfares due to the runaway success of low-cost carriers mean thousands more people are now taking to the skies for short hops around Europe or the US, and air travel is set to rocket in the fast-growing economies of Asia.
"It's a Catch-22 situation: many developing countries want to promote tourism as a revenue source and a lot of no-frills airlines are appearing in Malaysia and other parts of Asia," said Gurmit Singh, executive director of Malaysia's Centre of Environment Technology and Development.
"It's one of the unsustainable forms of development that Asian countries are rushing into," Singh said.
The sheer growth of passenger volumes is likely to negate the benefits of future improvements, say environmentalists.
Simon Thomas, chairman of London-based environmental consultancy Trucost, estimates that technological improvements help trim emissions by around 1 percent a year, a drop in the ocean when the aviation industry is forecasting 5 percent annual traffic growth for the next two decades.
"That's an enormous difference. It has the ability to completely undermine the Kyoto protocol," said Thomas.
Links between aviation and climate change have attracted widespread attention in Europe where environmental groups are calling for measures to curb the impact of airline emissions.
Environmental taxes, airline emissions trading or increased investment in high-speed rail networks are the most commonly touted methods to wean passengers from air travel.
The aviation industry opposes any new green taxes, saying many airlines are still in recovery mode. The world's carriers have lost some US$30 billion since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US.
Instead of curbing damaging emissions, new levies would only bump up fares and damage low-cost carriers in particular, say aviation groups.
"Generally speaking, if you tax the airlines in a negative way, you're removing our ability to reinvest in new technology," said Concil.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in