There is no silver bullet to achieving a sustainable future for commercial aviation. But it’s going to happen, one way or another.
Creating a sustainable future for commercial aviation is significantly challenging but achievable. It requires many and varied solutions, some of which may already exist, while others we cannot yet imagine. Etihad Airways’ Strategic Advisor and former Group CEO for the last five years, Tony Douglas, has worked in the aviation industry for over three decades. In terms of sustainability, Douglas says he has seen more change in the last five years than in the previous 25 combined. One thing is certain, he says: “There’s no silver bullet. Only a fool would say, ‘Pull this one lever. Press that one button. And that will be the big breakthrough.’”
Clearly, the airlines themselves must be “front and center,” says Douglas. But this challenge will only be solved with active input from stakeholders across the spectrum: governments, policy makers and regulators, fuel companies and power-plant manufacturers, infrastructure owners and aircraft manufacturers. It’s clear that to secure a sustainable future for aviation, collaboration is key.
Speaking to Reuters Plus, Douglas stressed that responsibility for ensuring a sustainable future for aviation cannot lie exclusively with the airlines—but not because they are trying to shy away from the environmental effects of commercial aviation, which emits roughly 2.1% of total global carbon output. In fact, quite the contrary.
Etihad has become a carbon reduction leader in the sector. Nearly two years after the airline announced its 2050 net zero commitment and 50% reduction by 2035, at the International Air Transport Association’s 2021 AGM, the Fly Net Zero resolution was passed by all member airlines, committing them to achieve net-zero carbon emissions in their operations by 2050. Alongside this commitment to Fly Net Zero, Etihad had previously set an interim sustainability goal of 50% less emissions by 2035 compared to 2019 levels.
Etihad has introduced innovative aircraft like the Boeing 787- and the Airbus A350-1000, and the company is actively engaged in the development of sustainable aircraft fuels. Through its Greenliner and Sustainable50 programmes, it has also introduced numerous sustainable business practices in the air and on the ground and created environmentally conscious consumer programs. Through these and other initiatives, Etihad has shown the sector, and the world, how commercial aviation can move toward a sustainable future.
The existential threat
Significant developments in aeronautical technologies have advanced the aviation industry in recent years, and fleets are being futureproofed through purchases of the most efficient aircraft available. Engagement with governments and regulatory bodies is improving the way airspace is used. Nevertheless, there are still significant challenges to be overcome to get the sector to net zero by 2050.
Aside from the realities of the physics of flight, people will always want to be on the move. Demand for air travel will keep growing in the foreseeable future, according to IATA, whose recent figures show that demand is expected to reach 94% of 2019 levels in 2023 and will increase to 103% in 2024 and 111% in 2025. This is a daunting prospect environmentally, but Douglas is clear that there is only one flight path, and its destination is sustainability. “It will happen because it has to happen,” he says.
Sustainability is a sector-defining issue, and airlines that do not rapidly adapt their business models and urgently engage with it, says Douglas, will follow in the footsteps of once-popular and now-defunct airlines TWA and Pan Am. “If you fast-forward 20 years, any airline that has not embraced and taken seriously this challenge simply won’t exist,” says Douglas.
Openness and innovation
Significant technological advances in aviation have recently increased efficiency. The Boeing Dreamliner, the most efficient aircraft in the world, is 22% more fuel-efficient than an Airbus A330, the previous generation of aircraft. An engineer by background, Douglas notes that in previous generations, an expected improvement in efficiency would have been more like 2.2%—a fraction of recent gains. These are tectonic technological shifts, moving the sector in the right direction.
Operating the 787-10 Dreamliner and Airbus A350-1000 aircraft, Etihad already has the world’s most efficient fleet. But the airline has gone further. Its Greenliner and Sustainable50 programs are being used as flying testbeds for new initiatives, procedures and technologies to reduce carbon emissions.
The Greenliner uses the Dreamliner as a base to experiment with more eco-friendly practices both in the cabin and on the wing, from eliminating single-use plastics to using a percentage of sustainable aviation fuel on some of its flights. Building on learnings taken from the Greenliner, Sustainable50 was named in recognition of both the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the UAE and Etihad’s commitment to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. It uses the Airbus A350-1000, which was developed in collaboration with Etihad to incorporate sustainable aviation fuel, optimize waste and weight management and improve data-driven analysis.
Pushing the data envelope even further, Etihad has partnered with SATAVIA, a UK-based green aerospace company with a revolutionary contrail prevention technology that aims to reduce the carbon impact of every flight by up to 60%. Douglas notes that these initiatives are drawing ideas from outside the sector, as well. “What we love about Greenliner and Sustainability50 is that they are attracting people to come to us with ideas that wouldn’t normally have been operating in the aviation industry,” he says.
Collaboration is key
Douglas points out that airlines only exist to serve the traveling public, “and we are only going to be able to serve them for the longer term if we can crack this problem,” he says. To meet the challenge, stakeholders from across the spectrum must collaborate to ensure that sustainable aviation fuel becomes more affordable and readily available, and to make the business case for a radical rethinking of flight paths and the way airspace is used.
The future of aviation can only be sustainable. Ultimately, says Douglas, “financial sustainability and environmental sustainability sit in the same sentence. It’s not one or the other.”
A sustainable future for aviation is achievable. Find out how Etihad are leading the way here