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By Scott Hamilton
Nov. 29, 2021, © Leeham News: The goals are admirable and lofty: cut carbon emissions dramatically.
Boeing wants to have its 7-Series airplanes be 100% compatible with Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) by 2030. Whatever Boeing can do, so can Airbus.
Airbus wants to produce the first hydrogen-powered airliner, probably in the 70-seat sector, by 2035.
IATA, the International Air Transport Assn. industry trade group, set 2050 at the target for net-zero emissions.
All great ideas. Industry officials understand the challenges and realities. Tim Clark, president of Emirates Airline, minced no words at the IATA AGM in October: Don’t make promises you can’t keep.
For the pie-in-the-sky crowd, the sheer numbers don’t add up. Replacing the thousands of Airbus A320ceos, A330ceos, Boeing 737 NGs, 757s, 767s, 777 Classics, Mitsubishi CRJs, and Embraer E1 jets with their successors—let alone, the successors to the successors—will take decades.
And this doesn’t even count replacement of today’s turboprops with a successor that doesn’t exist, followed by their successors.
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Category: Airbus, Boeing, ecoAviation, Premium