The aviation industry accounts for £2.67 trillion of the world’s gross domestic product, around 4.1 per cent. However, flying is one of the most carbon intensive activities you can do, and the aviation industry emitted around 915 million tonnes of CO2 in 2019. In total it is estimated aviation is responsible for 4 per cent of all man-made activities that drive climate change. Acknowledging this, in 2021 the International Air Transport Association (IATA) approved a resolution for the industry to hit net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
The study maps out the projected development of technologies such as Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), hydrogen or methane which will help to achieve that goal. But there are also a number of solutions that will have a direct impact on the passenger experience, including slower planes, steeper ticket prices and newer aircraft. Let’s take a look at how the pursuit of net zero could impact you, the passenger.
1. Slower planes
One of the most eye-grabbing measures in the study is the suggestion that planes ought to fly a little bit slower than they do right now. If flight speeds are reduced by around 15 per cent, fuel burn will decrease by five to seven per cent, the study says.
In order for this change to be implemented, new planes may need to be specially designed to fly at slower speeds. An author of the paper, Professor Rob Miller, director of the University of Cambridge Whittle Laboratory, said that implementing such changes would require “whole systems process change” involving a complex collaboration between airports, airlines and manufacturers.
If such a thing were achieved, slower planes would, of course, have an impact on passengers as it would spell longer flight times. On a transatlantic flight, this could mean 50 minutes added to the journey time. Given the already tight turnaround times at airports and challenges around air traffic control, this would likely impact airline productivity. The report suggests that longer flight times could be offset against reduced waiting times at airports, although it doesn’t specify how, exactly, this would be achieved.
2. Newer planes (and a competitor to Boeing and Airbus)
Another measure listed in the report is to reduce fleet age, which they say could reduce fuel burn by 11 to 14 per cent. What this would require, in practice, is for manufacturers like Boeing and Airbus to accelerate aircraft production and for airlines to halve their fleet retirement age from 30 years down to 15 by 2050.
However, Airbus and Boeing already plan to double their aircraft production by 2050, and halving fleet age as recommended would require an extra 50 per cent in production on top of that. The study suggests that the introduction of a third manufacturer into the market could help to achieve this.
While this may seem like a bold undertaking, the study says: “The total number of aircraft deliveries required over the next 25 years to halve fleet age is roughly one-tenth of the aircraft delivered in five years during the Second World War. While today’s aircraft are more complex, this historical precedent demonstrates that the required production rates are easily achievable in a state of crisis.”
3. Shifts in altitude
Under what is dubbed “Operation Blue Skies”, the study pinpoints contrails as having a significant climate impact of a scale similar to that of aviation’s CO2 emissions – although it acknowledges that there is greater uncertainty around their impact on warming.
Contrails can be avoided if a flight path is tweaked to avoid regions known as Ice Supersaturated Regions (ISSRs), where contrails form. These are described as “pancake-shaped – wide but shallow” which means adjusting altitude can be effective in preventing the formation of contrails.