When Go Air's two-engine A320 and Air France's four-engine, double-deck A380 leave their parking bays for the runway, there is a common practice pilots of these disparate aircraft follow. Till the aircraft enter the runway, they are run on only half their number of engines. Passengers barely perceive the difference, but for airlines it does matter: lower fuel consumption and thus a lighter fuel bill, and also reduced emissions.

"Potential fuel savings in terms of carbon emission reduction can be approximately 26,000 kg per aircraft per year," said Giorgio Deroni, CEO, Go Air. The low-cost carrier operates a fleet of 18 A320 aircraft, which adds up to a total emission reduction of 4.68 lakh kg per year. By a conservative estimate, each Go aircraft would achieve an emission reduction roughly equivalent to 52 Mumbai-Delhi flights as per a TOI report.

For a decade now, several airlines the world over have adopted the practice of shutting down one engine (two in the case of four-engine aircraft) after landing, in a practice called single-engine taxi-in. With airports becoming congested, necessitating newer parking bays that are far away from the runway, the time taken by an aircraft to reach a bay from the runway is on the rise, resulting in greater fuel burn.In India, the procedure was green signaled by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in July last year. Currently, Go Air is the only airline in India that does both single engine taxi in and out for most of its flights.

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