JFK Airport implements technology that will change how runways operate — here's how it could impact future flights

New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport is working with Delta Air Lines to get federal approval for a self-driving robot taxi that would tug planes around to their runways without requiring them to expend their own jet fuel, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced.

Jet fuel is both very expensive and very bad for our planet, which is why JFK Airport wants the planes that come through there to use as little of it as possible. "The idea behind [the initiative] is to reduce fuel burn on an airport, which is one of the largest contributors to CO2 emissions," said Ralph Tamburro, a Port Authority employee who specializes in air space modernization.

Even if the robot taxis do gain federal approval, that would not offset the massive amount of jet fuel that airplanes burn during takeoff and while flying. Tamburro estimated that the robot taxiing system could save 500 pounds of jet fuel per flight — which certainly sounds like a lot until you take into account that a single nonstop flight from, for example, New York to London burns around 240,000 pounds of jet fuel.

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That's why a whopping 2.5% of our total planet-overheating air pollution comes from the commercial aviation sector, which has accounted for 4% of the total planetary overheating that has happened so far, according to Our World in Data. This is despite the fact that only around 10% of the people on Earth fly in a plane each year.

If that sounds like a lot of air pollution per passenger, it's nothing compared to how much pollution per passenger is produced by private flights. As just one example, Bill Gates was reported to have taken 392 private flights — more than one per day — in 2022 alone. (He referred to this habit as his "guilty pleasure.")

While self-driving plane taxis that reduce the overall pollution per flight by 0.2% are fine, it is clear that we will never meaningfully reduce the emissions from this sector until the superrich are prevented from using it with complete disregard for the rest of the planet.