Global challenges like climate change require coordinated, joined up solutions, and this is certainly the case within aviation.
“Europe’s aviation sector is collectively on board to lead the way in reducing aviation CO2 emissions, making flying more sustainable for the long term,” Montserrat Barriga, director general of the European Regions Airline Association (ERA) — made up of airlines, airports, manufacturers, suppliers and service providers — tells us.
The primary plan to achieve net zero across the continent is via a basket of sustainability and efficiency measures combined together as the Destination 2050 programme. The bodies behind this programmer are: the ERA; airline group Airlines for Europe; airport group Airports Council International Europe; industry body ASD, the AeroSpace and Defence Industries Association of Europe; and air traffic group CANSO. There are very few players in European aviation, therefore, that it doesn’t cover.
Destination 2050 covers much of the wider European continent and expects to need to account for some 300 million annual tonnes of net carbon dioxide emissions in 2050 in the “EU+” zone: the EU, the European Free Trade Association, and the United Kingdom.
An interim goal of reducing CO2 emissions by 55% compared with the levels in 1990 — despite the strong growth of aviation within the region — is also set.
Destination 2050’s basket of sustainability measures fall into four categories:
- improvements in engine technology, including hydrogen power, electric power and hybrid-electric power
- improvements in air traffic management and airport operations
- drop-in sustainable aviation fuels (SAF)
- economic measures, specifically carbon removal projects, commonly known as offsetting
Sustainable Aviation Fuels: 34% of the basket
The largest single contributor to decarbonisation is projected to be sustainable aviation fuels.
“SAFs have major potential to reduce the aviation industry’s climate impact,” Barriga enthuses. “With SAF use, net CO2 emissions over the lifecycle can be reduced by up to 80 per cent now, and up to 100 per cent in the future. Any SAF should follow robust and transparent sustainability criteria. It is estimated that SAFs could account for up to over 80 per cent of the total fuel consumption in Europe by 2050.”
SAFs are by no means a silver bullet, and there are many questions still to be answered about their production, carbon reduction, and competition with both food crops in terms of overall supply and with other industries in terms of supply to aviation (versus, say, automotive).
Indeed, it seems unlikely that the availability of drop-in SAFs will exceed the current 50:50 certified drop-in ratio for quite some time.
Over the last year, even in the face of COVID, the ongoing trials of greater proportions of SAF to fossil kerosene have gained pace. United Airlines flew a 737 MAX full of passengers in the US with 100% biofuel in one engine at the end of 2021, while BRA of Norway is working with ATR and biofuel manufacturer Neste to demonstrate 100% SAF feasibilityin 2022.
Hydrogen-age technology: 20% of the basket
Commercial exploitation of green, sustainable hydrogen is one of the holy grails of the aviation industry.
ERA’s Barriga says, quite plainly, that “hydrogen-powered aircraft suitable for short-range intra-European routes have the potential to reduce CO2 emissions by 100 per cent”.
Airbus is hard at work on its ZEROe concepts, but these are planned to be commercialised by 2035 at the earliest, and likely for the shorthaul end of the market. In addition to the changes to aircraft, it will require substantial infrastructure investment both to produce green hydrogen and to store it.
There is thus, before the age of hydrogen power, much work to do in the current kerosene age.
Kerosene-age technology: 17% of the basket
Beyond making fuels greener with SAF, improving the efficiency of aircraft is a big part of the puzzle.
“There have been many improvements in aerodynamics over the past decade, and each development has contributed to greater efficiency of the aircraft, from engines and wings to winglets, carbon fibre and other composite materials,” Barriga says. “Equally, fleet renewal based on existing state-of-the-art products will continue to reduce CO2 emissions, and even higher reductions could be achieved in the short term by accelerated fleet renewal.”
While the question of sunk carbon emissions in existing aircraft versus more efficient carbon emissions from new aircraft remains, fleet renewal choices such as replacing regional jets and small airliners with turboprops can offer real emissions reduction benefits. Improving jet engine efficiency, too, will be crucial.
Barriga is, however, clear about the need to also look at wider economic measures: “Until SAFs and new aircraft become more widely used and breakthroughs such as hydrogen and hybrid-electric technology become available, smart economic measures are fundamental in reaching EU and global climate goals.”
Economic, supply-demand and pricing measures: 23% of the basket
“Smart economic measures will initially represent the most promising option to rapidly reduce net emissions from European aviation,” Barriga says. “The goal is to assign a price to CO2 emissions, ensuring that airlines and other operators take climate costs explicitly into account in their business decisions.”
“The most effective measures are emissions trading and offsetting schemes,” Barriga notes. These remain controversial, and are expected to account for some 8% of the 2050 emissions reduction, with a further 2% coming from reduced demand as a result.
This reduced demand category is critical to understand: essentially, it’s understood and now taken as read that the basket of sustainability measures will create extra cost on ticket prices. This supply-side increase will result in a change in the location of the intersection with the demand curve, essentially meaning that if tickets are more expensive, fewer people will fly.
The effective reduced demand from this transition pricing effect is expected to gain 12% of 2050 emissions from SAF pricing, 1% from hydrogen pricing and 2% from the economic measures pricing.
Altogether, the economic measures plus supply-demand pricing consequences from the transitions will account for nearly a quarter of the 2050 emissions reduction.
Air traffic management: 6% of the basket
Improving the coordination between air navigation service providers, airlines, pilots, air traffic controllers and governments is one of the lowest hanging fruits on the decarbonisation tree. Work is already underway here, with next-generation ATM featuring new technologies and inflight connectivity even potentially exceeding the headline 6% number in Destination 2050.
ATM could contribute, Barriga suggests, “between 6 to 10 per cent CO2 reduction from European aviation by 2050,” noting that “improvements are clustered in three areas: aircraft operations, ATM and ground operations at airports.”
ERA member Hop, the French regional part of Air France-KLM, “identified five areas for progress, from flight paths planned directly with air traffic control to flight procedures which enable fuel reduction without compromising safety,” Barriga notes, reducing fuel consumption by some 4.5% per passenger-km between 2016–2019.
Further technology advances are also on the cards.
Building on the Single European Sky programme comes the Digital European Sky research and innovation agenda, combined with flight planning, weight reduction, airframe condition monitoring, and maintenance improvements.
In addition, blue sky programmes such as wake energy retrieval and initiatives like Airbus’ fello’fly pairing can combine with operational changes like electric towing, reduced APU and engine taxi and more ground operations to reduce not only emissions on a global scale but also local pollutants around airports.
Barriga is clear about the scope of the challenge, though: “to achieve net zero CO2 aviation in Europe by 2050, while upholding international competitiveness and aviation’s benefits to society, joint, co-ordinated and decisive industry and government efforts are required. The time to act is now to make European aviation’s climate ambitions for 2030 and 2050 a reality.”
Author: John Walton
Published 31st May 2022
Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash
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