2023-08-25 06:30:02
For the aviation sector, the health crisis is almost forgotten. Evidenced by the air traffic figures, which have almost returned to their pre-COVID level.
According to’IATA (International Air Transport Association), airlines returned to comparable activity last May (96.1%) in May 2019. These figures, published on July 6, 2023, are driven up by domestic flights , the first to be reauthorized. International connections are not far behind, having recovered to around 90% of their pre-COVID level.
Thus, the record of 4.54 billion passengers transported in 2019 will not be beaten in 2023 (4.35 billion passengers transported). According to IATA, it will be from 2024.
In the medium term, Airbus and Boeing have confirmed a strong upward trend for the next few years, announcing that they aim to double their fleet of aircraft over the next twenty years. While today, a plane takes off every second, global air traffic is expected to double by 2037, and triple by 2050.
Emerging countries, in terms of air activity, such as India or Turkey for example, will drain part of this increase. For countries that are already very active, such as Europe or the United States, one of the challenges will be to develop technological solutions to be able to absorb this increase in airports. THE landing and take-off phases aircraft in particular could be subject to major modifications, to limit their duration and make the rotation of aircraft at airports more fluid. A persistent constraint will be concentrated around highly urbanized areas, where airports cannot be extended indefinitely, and where traffic will quickly find itself confronted with an unsurpassable limit.
This beneficial resumption of traffic for the entire aviation sector is not without raising questions, with a view to carbon-free aviation by 2050. Especially since for professionals in the sector as well as for the authorities short- and medium-term reduction of GHG emissions linked to passenger transport depends on two pillars: the massive use of biofuels, and a slower growth in air traffic.
As far as biofuels are concerned, current devices are already able to consume them in their current mode of operation. From now on, biofuels can enter at 50% in the composition of the mixture (with 50% kerosene), without damaging the tanks and engines of aircraft. To go further, it will be necessary to make modifications to existing devices, and above all to develop new devices capable of consuming mixtures richer in CAD (sustainable aviation fuels). Except that all of this is secondary today, given the low energy efficiency of the production of sustainable aviation fuels, which today is prohibitive to imagine producing them in sufficient quantity. For example, as far as France is concerned, the production via electricity of the biofuels necessary to support air traffic that would operate with 100% CAD would be equivalent to the production of 15 EPRs. Hard to imagine.
The other parameter therefore lies in a slower progression of air traffic, the contours of which are difficult to perceive today. The growth in air traffic, which should be around 3.1% in the years to come to lead to a doubling of traffic by 2050, must be regulated according to a downward trend. How to achieve this? Ideas are not lacking, but come up against many dilemmas. Thus, increasing the price of tickets would certainly tend to limit flights, but it would also lead to a sharp increase in inequalities in terms of access to this type of transport.
The growing desire to favor other means of transport for shorter destinations, as has been implemented in France, for the moment in a relatively minimalist way, makes it possible to transfer part of the air traffic to other sectors, like the train.
To conclude, it now appears that the solutions that will enable the aviation sector to come closer to the objectives set for 2050 lie more in the massive development of biofuels and the decline in traffic growth than in the development of aircraft revolutionaries running on hydrogen (green) or electricity, for example.
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