Electric aircraft buzzing across Cook Strait, hydrogen- or cooking-oil-powered jets plying domestic and international routes, pilotless vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) air taxis speeding people into the centre of Wellington. Welcome to 2050.
“Roll on the age of The Jetsons,” says Wellington International Airport chief executive Matt Clarke.
We all have to go through an airport and board a plane sometime. Flying and the occasionally exhausting process of getting out of a terminal and into an aircraft elicit a range of emotions and opinions.
Economics, and the malign collywobbles from the Covid-19 pandemic in the form of a recession and high inflation, continue to influence aviation fuel prices and airlines’ planning and policies, and the costs they pass on to us.
Climate change is the even larger issue looming over aviation. If you are one of many who worry about your green credentials, flying can make you come out in a cold sweat.
According to the Our World in Data website, aviation accounts for only 2.5% of global carbon dioxide emissions. Aviation, though, has contributed about 4% to temperature rise since the pre-industrial era, even though only 10% of the world’s 8.2 billion people fly in any year.
The fear is the number of global flyers will continue to rise far faster than the industry – encompassing aircraft, airports, infrastructure and other facilities – can decarbonise.
When they burn jet fuel, aircraft not only emit CO2 but also affect other gases in the atmosphere, including ozone, methane and water vapour. The strings of plane contrails that fill skies in the Northern Hemisphere may also increase global temperature.
New Zealand is in a good position to benefit from the best innovations.
Frenetic work is under way across the world to build zero-emission airports, find ways of making aircraft lighter and more energy efficient, develop greener electric or hydrogen-powered planes, and manufacture sustainable aviation fuels that use old cooking oils, forestry and plant waste.
The more environmentally aware among us may be the earliest adopters and the most confident passengers on new aircraft. But would you want to fly a long way on an electric plane? Or on one in which those big, dependable, comforting engines aren’t burning jet fuel but running on hydrogen? That may be how Kiwis will fly in future.
Globally, the aviation sector is facing its biggest changes since the arrival of jet aircraft in the 1950s and 60s. New Zealanders have always been enthusiastic international flyers, forced upon us by living thousands of kilometres from anywhere else, near the bottom of the world’s largest ocean.
Our small population of 5.3 million has also played a part in our reliance on aircraft to travel domestically. With few frequent and reliable public transport services, particularly in the South Island, flying is often the only alternative to driving on our long, skinny, mountainous islands. In countries of similar physical size, rail travel would reign supreme.
As jet aircraft have increased their range during the past few decades, from 10-12 hour legs to today’s marathon 17-18 hour stretches, the world has shrunk. Aotearoa is not as isolated as it once was.
Air New Zealand is among the airlines offering such lengthy hops with its flagship NZ1 flight between Auckland and New York – a little over 16 hours heading Stateside, but more like 17½ hours coming back.
Massive Change
Aviation progress tends to consist of long plateaux of consolidation ended by steep steps of massive change. We take for granted ultra-long-haul flights, but just two generations ago, our grandparents dressed up for the privilege of flying several legs across the world in economy class.
With the international aviation sector on the cusp of the next big thing, it’s not only aircraft manufacturers and airlines that are bracing themselves. Airports, including Auckland, are undergoing major redevelopments to cope with more passengers, replace ageing facilities and prepare for the next generation of aircraft and how they will be fuelled.
NZ Airports Association chief executive Billie Moore says Auckland’s redevelopment is on a similarly large scale to other international airports in Asia and Australia.
Palmerston North Airport and Wellington International Airport are now working on significant revamps.
Money from the Provincial Growth Fund and Covid-19 Response and Recovery Fund has also helped with terminal work elsewhere, she says, “a lot of them happening close together as the infrastructure from the 60s deteriorates”.
Moore believes New Zealand is in a good position to benefit from the best innovations in low- or zero-emission aircraft and new airport infrastructure as they are developed overseas.
“Like any sector experiencing a huge amount of technology investment, there will be some developments that move faster than we expect, and some that move slower. If we are smart and co-ordinated, New Zealand can take advantage of new aviation technology to not just reduce emissions but actually improve our connectivity. We’re a long, thin, rugged country with a lot of small population centres. That makes us a great testing ground for electric and hydrogen aircraft.
“Despite the ambition and agitation, it will still need to be a transition over 20-30 years. The key question is whether we can support the sector to sustain itself over that time.”
Airport solar farms and solar panels on buildings will power an increasing number of terminal operations.
No-Brainer
Moore envisages that by 2035, most of our airports will have eliminated nearly all their own direct greenhouse gas emissions and indirect emissions from their use of electricity and other energy sources. Christchurch Airport is a leader in this, committed to maintaining its net-zero-emission status since 2021 and achieve absolute-zero emissions by 2035.
Nationally, airport solar farms and solar panels on buildings will power an increasing proportion of terminal operations and ground-handling equipment.
“Airports are long-term planners. They’re already mapping what they will need to do with their infrastructure by 2050. Increasing renewable energy generation at an airport is a no-brainer that they can invest in now and support their region’s electricity needs, as well as their own resilience.”
Christchurch Airport’s Kōwhai Park solar farm development on 400ha next to its runways is a good example. Initially, it will generate 168 megawatts of power to inject into the wider electricity grid, but that electricity will increasingly be used to help the airport prepare for low-emission aircraft and the move from fossil fuels to electric and hydrogen power.
Nick Flack, the airport’s general manager of planning, assets and safety, says although the airport is interested in sustainable aviation fuels, the focus is on hydrogen.
“We see this is a major future for this airport, because of the fleet characteristics here. Air New Zealand is the second-largest owner of ATR [short-haul regional] aircraft in the world. There’s a lot of short flying; every sector length is about 350km, which fits really well with hydrogen flight, where you’re not having to carry batteries around. You can produce hydrogen in hubs, like this massive infrastructure upgrade that we’re carrying out as part of Kōwhai Park.”
One of those short, 350km-long sectors is further south to Dunedin Airport, where chief executive Daniel De Bono is mulling over a tricky emissions problem – indirect emissions not generated by the company itself at its Taieri Plain location, southwest of the city. “The confronting thing for our non-aviation-related emissions is our two dairy farms. Essentially, we’re using airport land we hold to protect our strategic interests. But while it’s doing nothing [else], it’s dairy farm. But that ends up being a couple of thousand tonnes of emissions per year out of a 2300-tonne-a-year business. So, the airport 300, the dairy cows 2000.”
The airport is now considering using some of that land as a solar farm. “Could we do large-scale, industrial-sized solar farming, for example, like Christchurch has kind of spearheaded? I have to commend them for it. It’s a bold and essential move and what they’re doing makes a lot of sense. You’ve got to provide the generation, and short-term most of that you won’t use at an airport; it will go elsewhere. But over time, you know that the onsite need is going to grow.
“Solar is really compatible with airports. You can’t put wind farms at airports. And land around an airport is quite tricky in terms of how you use it commercially, because you don’t want to attract birds.”
Anchor Projects
At the other end of the country, you hardly go a week without complaints of confusion or congestion or how slow security queues are. Auckland Airport is undergoing what chief executive Carrie Hurihanganui calls its “biggest transformation since the airport was built nearly 60 years ago”, a several-billion-dollar programme to deliver an airport “fit for the future”.
Three anchor projects are under way – a new domestic jet terminal to be integrated into the international terminal, a 250,000 sq m airfield expansion, and a transport hub.
As Auckland Airport is the country’s main gateway, the work is essential for New Zealanders everywhere, she says.
“The infrastructure we are constructing will allow our aviation partners – whether airlines, ground handlers or the government’s border agencies – to successfully operate now and in the years to come. The overall design includes spaces that can easily be adapted for future aviation trends, such as electric aircraft, drone-based logistics and advanced security protocols.”
Addressing greenhouse gas emissions is a priority, Hurihanganui says, with plans to cut 90% of direct emissions from electricity, natural gas and fuels by 2030 from a 2019 baseline. The 10% balance – refrigerants and fuels for vehicles where there currently isn’t an alternative – will be offset.
New Zealand has to support technologies to reduce aircraft emissions, she says. “The key product at the moment is sustainable aviation fuel. Auckland Airport is very supportive of the recent joint announcement from the New Zealand and Australian governments to work together on a regional sustainable fuel supply and on aviation decarbonisation.”
In the capital, airport boss Matt Clarke is eyeing up the next 20 years and infrastructure needed for electric and hydrogen-powered aircraft, including a new regional pier for electric ones. The plan is to be net-zero emissions for its own direct operations by 2028. “By 2050, we may well be carbon positive and generating our own energy from solar, wind or other onsite generation,” says Clarke.
Wellington’s central location makes it an obvious hub for the first regional electric flights, limited to a 1-2 hour flying range. “We’re hosting Air New Zealand’s first commercial electric demonstrator from 2026, so by 2035 I’d expect to see our regional network busy with electric aircraft buzzing passengers around the country on short hops.
“By 2050, the range and capability of electric aircraft should have increased even further, and we expect to see hydrogen-powered aircraft used on the main trunk domestic routes currently served by narrow-body jets. By [then], we should also see vertical take-off and landing air taxis whizzing people into Wellington’s CBD or further afield, with or without pilots. Hundreds of these vehicles are currently under development around the world.”
Focused on Sustainability
Tucked away in the rolling English countryside 80km north of London is Cranfield, a former World War II Royal Air Force base now a powerhouse of global technological development for aviation’s next era run by Cranfield University. During the war, Winston Churchill wanted Britain to have an experimental aviation university along the lines of the United States’ MIT. Cranfield was ideal – roughly halfway between Oxford University on one side and Cambridge University on the other, so there couldn’t be any arguments about favouritism.
Cranfield University’s technology park is home to more than a dozen global high-tech consortiums, laboratories and companies researching sustainability and rethinking the aviation sector for the decades ahead.
One of these is Cranfield Aerospace Solutions, chosen by Air New Zealand as its hydrogen technology partner for its Mission Next Gen Aircraft Programme. It is developing low- or zero-emission hydrogen fuel-cell propulsion systems, which will be useful for planes on our regional routes.
In the hangar, chief strategy officer Jenny Kavanagh shows the nine-seat, twin-turboprop Britten-Norman Islander the company is transforming with these engines. She says Air New Zealand is a keen supporter of its work. “They have no long-term plan of having fleets of little Islanders zipping around the New Zealand regional scene, but they want to progress to changing their larger aircraft to hydrogen when the technology is ready.
“They are … massively focused on sustainability. They see that actually introducing these novel small-aircraft technologies much earlier on will help them understand how to operate with hydrogen and electric aircraft in the fleet.”
In August, Air New Zealand ditched its target of a 29% reduction in emissions intensity by 2030 and withdrew from the Science Based Targets initiative. Chief executive Greg Foran said then that global delays with new aircraft, the affordability and availability of alternative fuels, and regulatory challenges made the target unachievable.
The airline remains committed to its 2050 net-zero carbon emissions goal. Its senior manager of sustainability, Jacob Snelgrove, says it spends about $1 billion a year on fuel, about 20% of that for domestic flights. The “one-hit wonder silver bullet” of jet fuel gas turbines is “not going to be the future as far as we’re concerned”.
“We’re pretty confident that battery technology for smaller aircraft not going very far is a given because, like an EV driving short distances, it’s really energy efficient.
“Once we try to fly further and carry more load, that’s when we need to look at hydrogen-fuel cell and battery-hybrid solutions. Once we get beyond that domestic range, then both hydrogen and hybrid technology become more limited because it just can’t fly that far, which is where we are focusing our attention on alternative fuels, such as sustainable aviation fuel, in the next decade or two.”
New Zealand, where 60% of domestic flights are under 350km, is uniquely placed to adopt the first generation of electric aircraft, Snelgrove says. The country is in the OECD’s top five nations for flights per capita per year, because of a lack of high-speed trains and motorway networks in the regions. “Aviation is such a public asset that the investment we make in developing that electric and hydrogen-powered domestic network is going to continue to pay off for New Zealanders for years to come.”
The airline’s fleet of 23 Dash 8-Q300, 50-seat turboprops is due for replacement in the 2030s, a chance to use these next-generation aircraft – if they are ready.
“It’s not that if the technology isn’t ready all hope for decarbonisation is lost, because at the same time there will be the opportunity to replace those aircraft with conventional advanced aircraft that use sustainable aviation fuel.”
NZ Airports Association’s Moore says by 2050, airports will be hubs “not just for travel, but for renewable energy companies and supply chains that support regional decarbonisation across New Zealand”.
“The challenge might feel insurmountable, but in my work I see the dedication from airports and airlines to a low-carbon future. I’m confident we’ll have a transition that works for New Zealanders.”
Hoppy Days
Passenger pressure to travel more cleanly and greenly and the acceptability of flying in a warming world will determine the success of next-generation aviation.
The conundrums are considerable. Should airlines take the risk that low- or zero-emission aircraft will be there when needed? Or do they buy aircraft that use sustainable aviation fuel only to find out five years later their customers are demanding, “Why can’t I fly to Australia on a zero-emission aircraft?”
“That green agenda is always going to be there,” says British aviation expert Rachel Gardner-Poole, a member of the UK Jet Zero Council who chaired its zero-emission flight delivery group until the work was put on hold by the new Labour government in July.
“You’ve got a whole load of people in the UK, particularly the younger generation, who are saying you shouldn’t fly at all. If there’s another mode of transport, you should not get on a plane.” She notes France has banned domestic short-haul flights where trains are an option.
“I’ve had chats with people who are in their 20s who would rather take three days to get to somewhere in Europe than fly for two hours.”
Cranfield Aerospace Solutions’ Kavanagh thinks the ultra-long-haul flights many Kiwi travellers use and which produce a significant amount of aviation’s emissions will be the first to be affected by industry changes and environmental concerns.
“New hydrogen technologies are not going to reach those ultra-long-haul flights for a long, long time. I think the best outcome for those at the moment is that they will use sustainable aviation fuel, if it scales in an economically viable way.
“But from a hydrogen technology perspective as it currently stands, those aircraft, if they adopted it, would have to start getting used to stopping more often and going back to the ‘hoppy’ days.”
Christchurch Airport’s Flack says it is important to remember aircraft do not only carry passengers and holidaymakers but also bring essential goods and foster trade. “It is important that, in a country in the middle of nowhere, we push the technology curve as fast as possible and be in a position with our infrastructure to make sure we’re ready to handle those planes.”
Until these new aviation technologies are in place, we may have to accept that shorter-haul flights and more stopovers will be necessary.
For a while at least, it looks like the world may be about to get bigger and more distant again for Kiwi travellers.
Bumpy Ride Ahead
Few of us enjoy turbulence, except thrill-seekers. The bad news for Kiwis who fly is that turbulence is expected to get worse with climate change.
Most turbulence is harmless. However, severe turbulence, while uncommon, can be dangerous and cause injuries, even though it is unlikely to damage an aircraft. In June, two people were hurt when an Air New Zealand Airbus hit severe turbulence about 15 minutes out of Wellington on its way to Queenstown. In May, a Singapore Airlines flight struck a pocket of clear-air turbulence (CAT) over Myanmar. Dozens were hurt and one person died of a heart attack.
Thanks to weather briefings and cockpit radar, pilots can generally navigate a course around the worst turbulence, caused by strong and gusty winds, mountains and thunderclouds. They also report turbulence to help those flying behind them to elude it.
But not all severe turbulence can be “seen” or predicted, particularly CAT. This can form around the edges of jet streams, the ribbons of high-speed wind that circle the globe towards the top of the atmosphere. With climate change heating the atmosphere and making it more energetic, severe turbulence and CAT are increasing.
Atmospheric scientist Professor Paul Williams of the University of Reading has become a global expert on CAT and predicting it. “Climate change is making us think about how we can reduce emissions from aviation. But it is also having a more immediate effect on air travellers, with extra energy in the atmosphere creating rougher air for flights.” He says that although most CAT research has been done on the busy North Atlantic air routes, it is also a concern for Southern Hemisphere travellers.
The North Atlantic routes were chosen for initial studies because of their busyness and the intensity of the jet streams. Williams and colleagues found there is now 55% more severe CAT than 40 years ago. They predict the mid latitudes may experience a doubling or tripling of severe CAT by the 2060s, and up to three times more injuries.
He says, “A CAT patch is shaped a bit like a pancake. It’s about 500m thick and 60km across. It’s big horizontally but thin vertically, and so that’s why a simple altitude adjustment will often be enough to avoid it.”
Traditional predictions looked at the position and speed of the jet stream to determine how strong turbulence might be. More complex turbulence forecasts, using wind and temperature data, can now successfully predict about 80% of turbulence up to 18 hours ahead.
“We compare them to pilot observations of turbulence, and we know they work. But like any weather forecast, sometimes they get it wrong. For every five patches of turbulence out there, we’ll get four of them. We’ve said it is going to double, but there are different ways it might. Double the number of patches means you’re going to have to go all over the place to go around them. But if each patch becomes double the size, it has less impact, because you have the same number to swerve around.”
Williams is targeting the 20% of clear-air turbulence that remains unpredicted as his career goal – “so that no plane ever has to fly through it again”.
