Abstract
The increasing relevance of air transport as a contributor to climate change requires the development of emissions reduction technologies in a socio-economic and cultural context, where demand and air traffic have traditionally held sustained growth rates. However, the irruption of COVID-19 in 2020 has had an enormous negative impact on air travel demand and traffic volumes. Coincidentally, during 2020, new technology proposals for emissions reduction based on use of hydrogen and synthetic fuels have emerged from the aviation stake holders. By following a novel approach connecting the analysis of expectations of technology developments and their deployment into the fleet to market constraints, this study discusses how, even considering the new technology proposals and even if the COVID-19 has led to a completely different scenario in tourism and aviation, the air transport energy paradigm will remain unchanged in the upcoming decades as a consequence of market constraints, aircraft complexity, compliance with safety requirements, and extended life cycles. In this frame, aviation needs to keep on pursuing the abatement of its emissions while managing social expectations in a realistic manner and leaning on compensation schemes to achieve emissions contention while new technologies become serviceable in the longer term.
Highlights
In fall 2019, sustained growth of air traffic was an undisputed assumption that was considered in all scientific studies about aviation sustainability [1,2,3,4,5,6]
CO2 aviation emissions in 2019 ranged between slightly over 2% according to the International Aviation Transport Association (IATA) [12] and 2.8% according to the International Energy Association (IEA) [13], with the sector accounting for an overall 3.5% of the full anthropogenic climate impact [14]
Questions arise on whether the same constraints limiting the change in the aviation energy paradigm identified and analyzed in fall 2019 are still applicable in this new scenario subject to the impacts of COVID-19 and where new technology proposals have been postulated, and what the likelihood is of a revolutionary paradigm change in the upcoming decades
Summary
In fall 2019, sustained growth of air traffic was an undisputed assumption that was considered in all scientific studies about aviation sustainability [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Gössling [24] identifies COVID 19 as a chance to rethink global air transport by challenging the current assumptions on which the sector operates (volume of growth, state aids, and unresolved environmental impacts), where a reduced supply would be an opportunity for airlines to increase profitability while yielding a more resilient aviation system. Mobility Strategy—putting European transport on track for the future, [28], published in December 2020) In this complex frame, questions arise on whether the same constraints limiting the change in the aviation energy paradigm identified and analyzed in fall 2019 are still applicable in this new scenario subject to the impacts of COVID-19 and where new technology proposals have been postulated, and what the likelihood is of a revolutionary paradigm change in the upcoming decades. Mid-term expectations and recommendations with regards to air transport sustainability do not fundamentally change, irrespective of the very different scenarios
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