The Future of Aviation
A whistle-stop tour of what aviation could look like, as well as the trends as they stand right now
Hello again! Another lengthy delay since the last post (apologies – I’m spinning too many plates right now!). As promised last time, today we’re taking a look at the future of aviation, exploring beyond the technologies themselves, and considering how the sector could and should evolve in the coming decades. As with anything that looks forward into what is yet to come, uncertainty abounds, so it may be a touch more nebulous than some previous posts. Nevertheless, I think it’s important to consider technology within its wider context in the world. Without further ado, let’s dive in!
Technology
I’m not focusing on technology this time, but it’s worth briefly revisiting the key developments most likely to play a role in the future of aviation. Most of the likely progress will revolve around propulsion and energy storage, with a smattering of other technologies supporting.
When it comes to propulsion, the main contenders are electric motors and turbofans/turboprops. The latter dominate on all but the smallest aircraft today, and there are proposals for ever higher bypass ratios and more efficient turbine technologies to make that precious jet fuel go ever further. Electric motors are relatively new in the aviation world, and so far haven’t really progressed beyond a few trainer aircraft. However, given proposed ideas and plans in the works, it’s likely we’ll see motors powering much larger aircraft in the future, either using propellers or ducted fans.
On the energy storage side there are a few more options. Jet fuel as it exists today is likely to be phased out, but it could be replaced by a number of drop-in replacements, or something radically different. On the drop-in front, there are biofuels (made from bio waste, like used cooking oil, or from crops) and syn-fuels, created from CO2 and hydrogen. Looking to more revolutionary ideas, we have batteries and hydrogen. Both have challenges specific to their adoption in aviation, but are being explored as routes to remove hydrocarbon-based fuel from the equation entirely.
There are other areas that don’t quite fit into the propulsion/energy storage split that are worth mentioning – novel aircraft designs, laminar flow, active camber control, and a host of other incremental tech improvements that will give small efficiency gains.
Possibilities in potentia
So what does that pan out to? What will be used where? Commercial aviation covers a wide variety of domains, and each will adapt differently.
The shortest flights are mostly island hopper services and the like – small aircraft flying short distances. These are likely to be electrified, and indeed some are close to reaching this already. Often these have few viable alternatives, and provide vital links to remote areas. Given that they can probably be entirely electrified, this seems like a win-win.
Air taxis also cover short durations and journey lengths, but are aimed at urban environments, and many of the latest generation of UAM (Urban Air Mobility) aircraft are also electrified. They are one of the biggest growth areas in aviation right now, seeing a vast influx of capital. They probably deserve their own article given their proliferation, but to me, they feel like an expensive boondoggle. Burning huge amounts of energy to move rich people into the air so they can skip traffic is an elitist solution that avoids the real work of improving urban transit systems for everyone – it’s pay to win, with fairness and the climate on the losing side. Taxis will likely always have a role in urban environments, but they are not a replacement for real public transit infrastructure, and moving them into the air is an expensive and dangerous distraction from real aviation decarbonisation.
Next comes short-haul aviation. This covers a wide range of journeys, but includes many domestic and intra-regional routes usually served by regional airliners and narrow-body jets. Tech here is a little more uncertain, but battery electric is unlikely on all bar the smallest aircraft, even out to 2050 and beyond. Drop-in fuels are likely to dominate initially, but as newer aircraft cycle in, hydrogen or hybrid powertrains may make an appearance, especially on the smaller end. This means short-haul aviation is unlikely to shed its full environmental impact any time soon, though it may decrease it significantly. Therefore it behoves us to consider alternatives to flying where viable.
When it comes to short-haul substitutes, it very much depends on the route in question. High speed rail offers the most potential for replacing flights of a few hours, but works best on high-density routes under 1,000km or so. It relies on significant government investment in infrastructure, and won’t work in every environment, but as Europe, China and Japan have shown, high speed rail can be a viable and speedy alternative to certain routes. There will need to be cultural and pricing/ticketing improvements to really facilitate this, but it can happen.
Long-haul flights are the trickiest by far, featuring the largest aircraft and the longest routes. Drop-in fuels will be the dominant option for most, although it’s possible for some routes hydrogen may make an appearance. For the longest and largest capacity routes though, the poor volumetric density of hydrogen may eliminate it from contention unless radical designs like the BWB become established (and even then hydrogen may still not prove practical). Ultimately, long-haul flight will always come with a considerable climate cost, even in the most positive scenario, and a lack of alternatives means the only way to bring this down is to fly less.
We should also not forget air freight services. Particularly in the last few years, with the rise of e-commerce, and companies such as Amazon competing on ever-faster shipping options, more and more cargo is being shipped by air. Increasing globalisation has been pushing up global freight volumes across the board, but air freight in particular has grown massively in the last few years. This comes with a massive environmental impact, though one largely hidden from consumers. The biggest firms such as Amazon have made significant pledges to purchase drop-in fuels, but that will only take them so far.
If firms were to move away from the race to have the fastest shipping for consumer goods, this would allow a huge volume of cargo to move back to ground or sea-based mechanisms, which are inherently more efficient, and have more scope to be decarbonised. Some goods need to be moved by air – medicines or certain foodstuffs, items which will perish fast – but a huge amount of air cargo should, with a rethink of supply chains, be able to be shipped via slower modes of transport.
We can fly, but should we?
That proves a nice segue to demand. We are flying more than ever before (at least until COVID hit), with more tickets to more places cheaper than ever. It’s as easy now to fly halfway across the world for a holiday as to travel within our own country or state, and for many, it’s become the norm. COVID has certainly made many businesses rethink their needs for travel, but recreational travel is widely predicted to bounce back rapidly as the pandemic eases.
However, as ubiquitous as flying seems, it is far from the norm globally. Many, many people have never flown, and have limited or no access to flight. A fairer world would see equal access to the wonders of international travel for all. Travel, exploring other nations and cultures, is an incredible and amazing experience, and should be available to everyone. However, it is also patently obvious that, especially if long-haul flying can’t be decarbonised, the world cannot deal with the entire global population flying as regularly as the current elite do.
Back to reality
This seems a good point to jump back to the real world. Where are we now, and what likely lies in store for the future?
Technologically, there’s funding for and progress being made on most areas, but slowly. The big incumbents are cautious, and so lean towards the incremental rather than the revolutionary, focusing mostly on efficiency improvements and drop-in fuels. However, there are a number of startups looking at hydrogen, electric, and even blended-wing body designs. The safety-focused and regulation-heavy nature of the industry means that change will be gradual, and the biggest changes likely won’t occur for decades, if we see them at all, even with increasing pressure from climate activists.
Drop-in fuels are the main focus right now, mostly biofuels, though some airlines are considering syn-fuels. However, all suffer from a lack of production volume and high pricing, meaning huge scaling is needed. Price pressure means that airlines often can’t buy the new fuels and still keep prices competitive, so there’s somewhat of a prisoner’s dilemma. Hydrogen developments often make the news, but are very dependent on wider funding of a green hydrogen infrastructure, which is definitely in its infancy.
On the demand front, sadly very little is happening. The aviation industry has huge clout, and few want or are able to reign it in. Some small efforts have been made – Air France cannot offer domestic flights with a TGV alternative under 2.5 hours as a term of their COVID bailout – but these are the exception rather than the norm. Bodies like the EU may act, but aviation faces a coordination problem, an issue in many parts of the climate crisis. Action requires global agreement, and right now too many parties are either uninterested or actively pushing back on efforts to regulate and limit aviation.
Individual countries could implement policies to manage demand – a frequent flier tax is an option that has been proposed intermittently in the UK, for example – and as nations start to look at more detailed plans to implement net-zero targets, this may well be a mechanism that’s considered. However, policies that target the wealthiest are currently not particularly in vogue, meaning strategies to tackle aviation demand may either falter entirely, or take the form of flat taxes on all flights, perhaps lowering demand, but failing to tackle the equity issue.
It’s clear that in aviation, as in many other areas of the global effort to decarbonise, we need a combination of technological innovation and firm policy. Aside from perhaps shipping, aviation is unique in lacking clear technological solutions for reducing impact, whilst simultaneously being sufficiently international that no single country can easily act to reign it in. How the industry evolves in the coming years and decades will be interesting to watch, and hopefully I can play a small part in that journey.
Thanks for reading. Next time should see a return to more technical topics, and I’m hoping I can share a little more of what I’m currently working on. See you then!
Oli