Green Airlines 2025: Environment and Sustainability in Commercial Aviation - A Scenario Study

Abstract

Reducing the environmental impact is a great challenge for the aviation industry. However, the difficulty to anticipate future developments combined with long product lifecycles make strategy definition for aviation stakeholders challenging. This paper therefore presents a foresight project of a joint study by Airbus, Technical University of Munich, and Bauhaus Luftfahrt. The methodology uses a scenario approach to develop three alternative scenarios. They represent future situations of the aviation world in the year 2025 with focus on environmental topics. Driving factors of influence for the future development are identified, for instance, the world economy, environmental regulations, or the passenger's perception of aviation. Finally, strategic implications for airlines and aircraft manufacturers and possible fields of cooperation are discussed within the scenarios. Aircraft fleet renewals, for example, are considered as the most important step for airlines in all three scenarios. Sustainable fuels are not expected to have a significant contribution until 2025. I. Topic MotivationHE transport sector, in general, undoubtedly has a considerable impact on our environment. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), CO2 emissions caused by transport represent 23% of man-made CO2 emissions globally and 30% in OECD countries. 1 Reducing transportation's negative impacts on the environment thus is a crucial goal, e.g. for political institutions and the transportation industry. Aviation, more specifically, is responsible for around 2% of the total man-made CO2 emissions worldwide. 2 Apart from CO2 emissions further topics are of relevance for the aviation industry such as other gaseous emissions or local air quality and noise emissions in the vicinity of airports.These challenges are intensified by the comparatively high visibility of aviation in the public perception. Many airports face concerns and opposition to different degrees, e.g. by residents, due to the airport's environmental impact. In Europe, for instance, this is true for existing airports and for intended expansion projects in particular. Effective strategies are therefore required to enable sustainable growth for the aviation industry without negatively impacting today's quality of life or depleting the resources needed in the future. Consequently, efforts to minimize aviation's environmental impact play a major role in aircraft and engine design and manufacturing. Furthermore, aircraft operations are examined in order to reduce their environmental impact.

Identifying the best practices of airlines’ green operations strategy: A cross‐regional worldwide survey

“…The government and private sector are concerned about investing in such research projects, but, as noted above, customers are not willing to pay extra for airlines to adopt biofuel (Brooks et al., ). In any case, biofuel is not expected to make a significant contribution until 2025 (Will et al., ).…”

“…Management must incorporate environmental considerations into green fleet design (Teoh & Khoo, ). Renewing the aircraft fleet is considered the most important action for an airline to take (Will et al., ). The newer generations of long‐haul wide body jets, such as the A380, A350XWB, and Boeing 787 and 747–8 achieve lower CO 2 emissions and reduce noise (Szodruch, Grimme, Blumrich, & Schmid, ).…”

“…Despite the use of biofuels for promotion purposes, customers, still dominated by the economic factor, are not prepared to pay extra to biofuel operators (Brooks et al., ). Sustainable fuels are not expected to make a significant contribution until 2025 (Will et al., ).…”

“…The studies from a marketing perspective have focused on surveying customers’ willingness to pay for airlines’ green practices (Hagmann, Semeijn, & Vellenga, ; Horio, Kumar, Levin, & Sung, ; Mayer, Ryley, & Gillingwater, ); the use of eco‐labels (Baumeister & Onkila, ); and the willingness to purchase green aviation products (Hinnen, Hille, & Wittmer, ). The studies from the operational perspective focus on reporting the impact of particular operational practices on green indicators (Smith, ; Teoh & Khoo, ; Will et al., ; Yan, Cui, & Gil, ), but concern about report green strategy (Lee, Tsai, Yang, & Lin, ; Lin, ; Teoh & Khoo, ) or best practices (Abdullah, Chew, & Hamid, ) is rarely shown. Moreover, most studies have reported the practices in the context of a single country (Chapman, ; Harvey, Williams, & Probert, ; Horio et al., ; Liu, Zhou, Zhou, & Wang, ; Lynes & Dredge, ) or a single region (Yan et al., ).…”

Civil Aircraft Multi-Objective Design Optimization for Cost and Emission Reduction

“…As known, civil aircraft is the only transportation, which could move people and their goods worldwide rapidly and safely, so the air transportation network has been developed on a large scale in recent decades [1] . However, this development may result that the aviation emission is continually increasing which may lead to irreversible damage to the environment [2,3] . Besides, to create greater value for human activities, the operating cost of civil aircraft also should be paid more attention to [4,5] .…”