A falling fuel bill can be welcome without answering whether resources are being used responsibly. EIA's February 17, 2017 analysis described lower airline fuel costs and suggested that stronger profits likely eased financing constraints on more efficient aircraft. For an interfaith discussion of stewardship, the useful starting point is this distinction between financial opportunity and a demonstrated improvement in resource use. [30012][6670]
The earlier EIA analysis of June 13, 2012 makes that distinction concrete. U.S. airline fuel consumption declined from about 18 billion gallons in 2005 to 16 billion in 2011, with both fewer flights and greater efficiency contributing. Yet fuel spending increased as prices rose. Neither a larger nor a smaller bill reliably describes the physical resources consumed without further information. [30012][6670]
Stewardship can also concern ordinary operating choices rather than only new equipment. The 2012 account identified routes, speed and idling time as ways to affect efficiency. Our ethical reading is that such choices belong beside fleet renewal in a discussion of responsibility. This is an invitation to examine obligations, not a claim that all religious traditions rank environmental, worker and passenger interests identically. [30012][6670]
Truthfulness about beneficiaries is part of that discussion. The two EIA accounts do not establish wage gains, lower fares or a particular airline's environmental outcome. Faith-based and secular readers can debate how financial relief ought to be used while keeping those missing results visible. The evidence supplies concrete resource and financing questions; it does not confer moral approval on an airline or settle the competing claims on its savings. [30012][6670]
Source documents
- Lower airline fuel costs reduce U.S. airlines’ operating expenses, increase net profitshttps://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=30012
- High airline jet fuel costs prompt cost-saving measureshttps://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=6670