AIRCAT - Assessment of the Impact of Radical Climate-Friendly Aviation Technologies

Abstract

In 2009 the aviation industry has committed to a set of ambitious high-level goals to reduce its car-bon emissions at a global level: • 1.5% average annual fuel efficiency improvement between 2009 and 2020 • Carbon neutral growth from 2020 • A reduction of 50% in net CO2 emissions by 2050 relative to 2005 levels. The long-term reduction goal of 50% in net CO2 emissions by 2050 relative to 2005 levels cannot be met with evolutionary technologies only, but radically new technologies and aircraft concepts as well as sustainable propulsion energies are necessary in addition to obtain the needed fuel burn and emissions reductions. A variety of novel aircraft concepts and new technologies are proposed by manufacturers, research institutions and academia. To ensure a frictionless implementation of these new concepts into the air transport system, their impacts on all aviation stakeholders (manufacturers, aircraft operators, airports, air navigation ser-vice providers (ANSP)) have to be identified. IATA and DLR have worked together in the AIRCAT project (Assessment of the Impact of Radical Climate-Friendly Aviation Technologies) to identify possible challenges, obstacles and roadblocks to the introduction and deployment of three prom-ising novel aircraft concepts and two types of low-carbon alternative fuels in a multi-stakeholder expert workshop. Based on the outcome of this workshop, key conclusions and recommendations for future work and support actions have been derived to support the introduction of radical new concepts. Furthermore an assessment of the carbon emissions reduction potential of the discussed concepts at world fleet level has been performed to derive its contribution to aviation’s emission reduction goals.