Air travel is preparing for a new, more efficient restart. In France, by banning most domestic flights. In the US, by turning to biofuels.
A ban on domestic flights in France where a train alternative of under 2 hours and 30 minutes already exists. This is what the National Assembly, the lower house of the French Parliament, has proposed with a bill that, if passed, would in practice force airlines to cancel domestic flights connecting two cities reachable by rail in an acceptable time. Originally, as reported by Reuters, the climate commission set up by President Emmanuel Macron had proposed even stricter measures, banning all domestic flights in France between destinations connected by direct trains within under 4 hours.
The bill, as Le Monde explains, must first also be approved by the Senate, but forms part of a broader package of climate legislation aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 40 per cent by 2030 (compared with those emitted in 1990). A measure that has reignited public attention on the pollution produced by air travel.
While it is true that 2020 and 2021 saw a drastic reduction in air traffic due to the coronavirus pandemic, statistics for previous years published by the Airports Council International (Aci) showed that the skies were becoming ever busier, with growing volumes of goods and passengers passing through airports (up 6 per cent from 2018 to 2019). In 2019, 4.5 billion passengers chose to travel by plane, and according to figures provided by Atag (Air Transport Action Group), the sector globally accounts for around 2 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions produced by human activity — a figure that rises to 3 per cent when considering Europe alone.
Air travel — again according to Atag — is responsible for 12 per cent of total emissions from the transport sector (still far behind the 74 per cent attributable to road transport), with the majority of emissions attributable to long-haul flights, meaning routes of over 1,500 kilometres, for which there are in practice no real alternatives today.
It is Atag itself, therefore, that underlines that "alternative fuels, in particular sustainable aviation fuels (Saf), have been identified as prime candidates to help the sector meet its climate targets." Among these are derived sources such as algae, jatropha or waste by-products, which have been shown to reduce the carbon footprint of aviation fuel by up to 80 per cent over their entire life cycle.
"Our industry has the long-term goal of halving CO2 emissions by 2050," confirmed Michael Gill, executive director of Atag. "With the right support from governments, the energy sector and technology, we expect global aviation to be able to reach net zero emissions within around a decade. To achieve this goal," Gill continued, "in addition to a transition away from the aviation fossil fuels currently in use towards sustainable fuels, it will also be necessary to accelerate research and development into electric, hybrid and potentially hydrogen-powered aircraft." A transition that Gill himself has called for as early as the next decade.
The collaboration of all stakeholders involved in air travel will be essential, Atag has further stressed. And there are already those who have made commitments to fly on alternative fuels, such as Boeing. The US giant has announced that by 2030 all of its aircraft will run exclusively on biofuels, derived from the processing of materials such as vegetable oil, agricultural waste, non-edible plants, non-recyclable household waste and industrial plant exhaust gases — an alternative that under current regulations may be blended with conventional fuels at a maximum ratio of 50:50.
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"To meet aviation's commitment to reduce carbon emissions by 50 per cent compared with 2005 levels by 2050, aircraft must be capable of flying on 100 per cent sustainable aviation fuels well before 2050," Boeing stressed, recalling the milestones already achieved in the past: "In 2018, through the experimental flight programme Boeing ecoDemonstrator, we completed the world's first commercial aircraft route (in collaboration with FedEx) using the 777 Freighter cargo aircraft powered by low-impact fuels."
Among other alternative fuels are biomass and natural gas, but all must be certified for use in commercial flights, and to date there are six certified production pathways for bio-based aviation fuels, with many more in the process of approval. Uptake by airlines remains limited, the European Union Safety Agency explains, primarily due to costs, and it comes as no surprise that very few airports in the European Union operate flights using biofuel blends.