Future trends and scenarios in aviation

Kurzfassung

The presentation discusses future energy trends and scenarios in aviation. Aviation has a significant share in global oil demand. Typically, aviation forecasts and scenarios predict traffic development, but not energy consumption. Traffic forecasts predict medium- and long-term aviation demand growth between 2.8 % and 5.2 %. Updated medium- and long-term forecasts - considering Covid-19 - expect a small decline in growth rates (e.g. Boeing CMO 2021 4.0% p.a. vs. CMO 2019 4.6 %). Aviation has increased energy efficiency and decoupled energy consumption from traffic development. Main contributing factors were engine technology and aerodynamics, flight efficiency by operations and air traffic management. As things stand, alternative energy carriers will be limited in their commercial use to small regional aircraft (battery-electric power) or short-medium haul jets (hydrogen), if at all. Sustainable aviation fuels are the most likely alternative for a decarbonization of aviation in a reasonable timeframe.