Sustainability is no longer an option for aviation, and in the last of our series of eight post pandemic articles we spoke with leading experts to get their views on the hot topic of sustainability in aviation…
The future of aviation is a greener, more sustainable industry than ever before. But beyond the technical advances, what are the strategic issues facing the industry? We talked with Austrian Airlines, KLM and Professor Richard Anderson from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to get a feel for some of the big-picture discussions going on within aviation.
“On the customer side,” Austrian Airlines’ Anna Pachinger tells us, “the biggest behavioural change might be in business travel. Since COVID-19 many companies question whether certain business trips are necessary or not. The reasoning is threefold: health, financial resources and ecologic impact are to be considered.”
As a result, she says, “in May this year we have introduced the possibility for our clients to buy sustainable aviation fuel [SAF] directly in the booking process and thus make their own ticket carbon neutral. Also, we have introduced initiatives to tackle food waste by introducing attractive on board and preorder services. Lastly, operational efficiency measures have [been] further developed. Changes such as the change to ejournals save tons of carbon dioxide due to reduced weight.”
Austrian’s pilots are also using flight profile optimisation tools to reduce both emissions and costs during operations.
At KLM, in addition to committing to a climate reduction path verified by the Science Based Targets initiative, the airline employees’ Sustainable Flight Challenge initiative expanded to sixteen of its SkyTeam partners in 2022 and will continue in 2023.
“In addition,” Hedwig Sietsma, director for climate policy at KLM tells us, “we have now introduced a standard SAF surcharge on tickets of 0.5% for flights departing from Amsterdam and it is possible for passengers to purchase an extra amount of SAF when booking.”
Fundamentally, says Sietsman, “digital innovations are very important —reporting, eco-piloting — and also operational decision support systems, but the biggest innovations are in aircraft, fuel and making our operation more efficient.”
External pressures mean that aviation needs to rethink its sustainability communications
“The social pressure on this subject and on us has increased significantly,” Sietsma tells us. “The COVID-19 pandemic has also given us time to reflect and conclude that sustainability is our license to operate. Throughout the airline industry you see that goals are being set, more and more responsibility is being taken and activities to reduce CO2 reduction step by step.”
A key topic of discussion — and no little external criticism, including with a prominent lawsuit this year — has been the aviation industry’s use and planned use of climate offsetting, also known as carbon compensation.
“CO2 compensation is an important part of our climate action plan. Of course, our primary focus is on reducing CO2 emissions, but what cannot yet be compensated for can be compensated through reforestation,” Sietsma says. “However, we see increasing pressure — on communication — on reforestation as an instrument. We are following this and the discussions about greenwashing carefully because campaigners have voiced concerns and complaints about this.”
“At KLM,” Sietsma continues, “we’re committed to communicating with our stakeholders transparently and honestly about our approach to sustainability. It would certainly not be in our interests to misinform our customers. It’s our responsibility to make future travel as sustainable as possible and it’s just as important to be transparent about this. Despite believing our statements to be based on solid arguments, we think it is important to discuss this with them.”
This approach seems sensible and pragmatic. Customers and prospective customers, as well as regulators, governments and other stakeholders, want different information than they did previously. In many ways, this information is more detailed than before, and airlines need to meet these needs.
Referring back to the current greenwashing lawsuit, Sietsma explains, “we hope that a court ruling in this case will clarify how best to shape our communications policy.”
Aviation is looking at a startup-consolidation period
During the pandemic, cash-flow issues meant that many existing organisations — from airframers to suppliers and throughout the industry value chain — tightened their R&D belts. At the same time, a new generation of startups developing solutions for more sustainable aviation, as well as many looking at the challenges of advanced air mobility and sub-regional flights, are coming to maturity.
Richard Anderson, professor of aerospace engineering at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and previously the director of its flight test facility the Eagle Flight Research Centre, calls it “the golden age of electric propulsion and sustainability in aviation.”
“You see literally hundreds of companies coming forward, moving quickly and nimbly, where the OEMs were hamstrung by cashflow issues, and so there’s a lot of interesting technology out there,” Anderson tells us. “There’s also a lot of stuff that won’t make it — out of 400 companies we’re going to see the necking down of the really good ideas, the ones that that will carry through. I think that you’re seeing companies like Raytheon and Boeing… starting to really eye those companies and technologies to try and catch back up over that ‘loss of R&D’ period that was caused by the cash flow in the airline industry.”
To a certain extent, there is an ‘acquihire’ dynamic at work here too: for some of these technologies, aviation either has not historically had knowledge and experience here. For others there’s an argument that allowing more nimble startups to work essentially as mini-skunkworks operations for both the technology and the technologists.
But the R&D departments of the existing big players in the industry are also likely to be a major source of innovation, Anderson says, especially as thinking moves beyond the tube-with-wings model for fixed-wing aircraft.
“We’re in the third revolution — not an incremental step, but a revolution — of aircraft propulsion, where we start to fold electric propulsion into it. It might be hybrid at the smaller end, it might be battery electric, or combinations of all of those things. I think what you’re going to see is that the engine manufacturers will come up with novel designs that will then feed into the airframers designing completely different airframes around those.”
Author: John Walton
Published: 24th January 2023
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