Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates that operated humanitarian flights to 60 cities around the world during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, has put a renewed focus on responsible travel to further its commitment to sustainability.
The Greener Together initiative recognises that responsible travel remains the most significant long-term challenge facing the aviation industry and has seen the airline pledge to halve its 2019 level of net emissions by 2035 and become a zero-emissions carrier by 2050.
CLEANER SKIES
One step taken towards this goal is Etihad’s partnership with Boeing. The duo is developing the ecoDemonstrator programme on a 787-10 aircraft for the first time, consulting with NASA and aircraft-expert Safran Landing Systems to achieve a quieter and more fuel-efficient take-off and landing.
Last month, as part of the ecoDemonstrator programme, an Etihad flight from Seattle to South Carolina in the US operated using the largest commercially produced 50/50 blend of sustainable and traditional jet fuel (almost 50,000 US gallons). This is helping to prove it’s now possible to produce at commercial volumes, which could indicate the beginning of a turning point for the industry as a whole. The flight was one of many in Etihad’s partnership with Boeing that tests cutting-edge technologies on the carrier’s Dreamliner fleet to make flying more sustainable.
