Following the news that Etihad and Boeing extended their partnership with sustainability-focused ecoDemonstrator testing;

Mathew George, Ph.D., Aerospace & Defense Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers his view:

“Airlines and manufacturers have been looking at ways to improve efficiencies and have greener operations for quite a while now with commitments from both Airbus and Boeing on their own programs. This edition of the ecoDemonstrator from Boeing uses a 787-10 Dreamliner destined for Etihad, with other industry partners such as Safran taking part in the tests as well.

“Safran Landing Systems hopes to attenuate landing gear acoustic contribution by more than 20%, and the test flights are to be conducted with a blend of sustainable fuel, to reduce aviation’s environmental footprint.

“Qatar Airways, on the other hand, recently announced its achievement of being the first airline in the Middle East to secure IATA’s highest accreditation (IEnvA Stage 2) for the environmental assessment program and that it was going to suspend A380 and fly its fleet of A350 and Boeing 787s to ensure sustainable operations. Incidentally, Etihad is presently an IEnvA partner and aims to get IEnvA Stage 1 certified in the next 24 months.

“Meanwhile, Airbus announced that it was expanding its sustainable aviation fuel operations to Hamburg, Germany with its customers able to choose the option to have their deliveries with sustainable fuel.

“We can expect further announcements and innovations in this space with airlines, manufacturers and component manufacturers looking for innovation in their processes, materials or technology to make incremental changes to reduce their carbon footprint and have sustainable operations to an eventual future with zero emission electric commercial aircraft.”