Etihad Commemorates Earth Day In A Special Way

Etihad Airways, the national carrier of the United Arab Emirates, achieved its goal of operating the world’s most intensive sustainable flight testing programme with 42 flights flown over a five-day period to test operational efficiencies that could significantly reduce carbon emissions.  

Tony Douglas, Group Chief Executive Officer, Etihad Aviation Group, said: “We believe this is the most intensive sustainability flight testing programme ever conducted, the results of which will contribute to reducing aviation’s carbon emissions and environmental impact as the learnings are implemented into standard airline operations across the industry.” 

Etihad points to Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF), which are six times more expensive than conventional aviation fuels at the moment and incredibly difficult to the point of impractical to procure which makes the transition expensive and yet worth the expense. 

“This challenge needs policy changes from Governments, continued R&D, supply chain enhancements, and refining improvements,” said Douglas. 

“The other big area, which has a simple solution but requires fundamental restructure to the way things currently work, is for the industry, traffic controllers, and regulators to modernize flight paths for controlled climbs and continuous descent. In our demonstration EcoFlights, we've been able to take at least 40 minutes out of flight time and reduce the CO2 content by around six tonnes, which is incredible.” 

Etihad’s newest sustainability beacon, the Sustainable50 A350-1000, officially became the first A350 to operate as an EcoFlight. 

“Operating EcoFlights on the A350-1000 is a big step forward as an example of the world’s two largest aircraft manufactures working in tandem for the mutual objective of aviation decarbonization through Etihad’s comprehensive Sustainable50 and Greenliner sustainability programme.” 

Through these programmes, alongside Etihad’s ongoing research and testing initiatives such as EcoFlights, Etihad encourages and invites partners from across the aviation sector to join and test sustainability initiatives on scheduled 787 and A350 operations.  

Etihad has already published its 2020-2021 Sustainability Report, documenting the previous two years of the airline’s sustainability efforts – from ground-based electric tractors to airspace efficiency improvements. The results and data from Etihad’s Earth Day EcoFlight and Contrail flight testing programme will be formulated and analysed over the coming weeks, to be added to the knowledge base on its journey to decarbonisation.