Industry must collaborate to hit net-zero target, says Etihad chief Douglas

Etihad Airways CE Tony Douglas has called for the aviation industry to work together with all its stakeholders – including policy makers, regulators and passengers – in order to hit its net-zero goals by 2050. Speaking aboard the 31 March inaugural commercial flight of the airline’s new Airbus A350-1000 – dubbed the Sustainability 50 – Douglas said there was “no silver bullet” to cutting aviation’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. “The physics of flight mean we cannot achieve that emissions target with only one or two big initiatives – it requires many initiatives, big and small, to come together,” he says. Douglas highlights a flight conducted in October last year between London Heathrow and Abu Dhabi base as an illustration of the savings that can be achieved – but also the challenges that still need to be overcome. Operated with the carrier’s Boeing 787-10 Greenliner – an aircraft that has been configured to trial new environmental technologies – the flight cut CO2 emissions by 72% compared with the same service in 2019 using an A380. While the frugality of the Boeing twinjet over the four-engined superjumbo was a major contributor to the greenhouse gas reduction, the flight was also operated using a 38% blend of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), albeit this was less than hoped for. “We simply could not get the 50% we wanted,” he says. Story has more.<br/>