Etihad Airways has made 42 “ecoflights” to mark Earth Day and as part of its efforts to raise industry awareness and participation in its drive for aviation decarbonisation. The flights were the world’s most intensive sustainable flight testing programme, the airline said.
They tested a range of operational efficiencies and technologies, while contrail flights tested prevention systems with SATAVIA, a UK company that aims to prevent 60 percent of the aviation industry’s climate impact. Contrails are water vapour that condenses as ice onto soot particles emitted from aircraft engines and can heighten the effect of global warming. They may account for more than half of the entire climate impact of aviation.
Tony Douglas, Group CEO at Etihad Aviation Group, said: “We believe this is the most intensive sustainability flight testing programme ever conducted, the results of which will contribute to reducing aviation’s carbon emissions and environmental impact as the learnings are implemented into standard airline operations across the industry.”
Etihad Airways, the national carrier of the UAE, said the flight tests included the first sustainability focused EcoFlights ever performed on an A350 plane.
Some of the technologies and operational efficiencies it tested can be implemented today and it is in the process of putting these innovations into standard operational procedures. Some technologies are still in their infancy and Etihad is working with its partners to test and develop these for future use.
“The other big area, which has a simple solution but requires fundamental restructure to the way things currently work, is for the industry, traffic controllers and regulators to modernise flight paths for controlled climbs and continuous descent. In our demonstration EcoFlights we’ve been able to take at least 40 minutes out of flight times and reduce the CO2 content by around six tonnes, which is incredible,” Mr Douglas added.
Etihad’s newest aircraft and sustainability beacon alongside its established Greenliner programme, the Sustainable50 A350-1000, officially became the first A350 to operate as an EcoFlight.
It has a wide range of measures to bring down carbon emissions, such as reduced engine taxi-ing. Most of the ground movements are conducted using only the power of one engine. By shutting down a single engine of the aircraft when it lands, Etihad can reduce carbon emissions produced by 20 to 40 percent.
Etihad has publishing its 2020-2021 Sustainability Report, documenting the previous two years of the airline’s sustainability efforts – from ground-based electric tractors, to airspace efficiency improvements, and even to experimental test-flying with NASA and Boeing.
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