Podcast: Aviation Pulls Back From Innovation

As Airbus puts hydrogen on the back burner and ATR delays its hybrid-electric turboprop, does the industry have a prayer of meeting its net-zero goals?

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Transcript

Joe Anselmo:

Welcome to the Check 6 podcast. I’m Joe Anselmo, Aviation Week’s editorial director and editor-in-chief of Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine.

It sounded too good to be true, and as it turns out, it was.

Airbus's ambitious plan to develop a zero-emission, hydrogen-powered commercial aircraft by 2035, funded with gobs of European government money, has been pushed back at least five years, if not 10. That has raised further doubts about the aviation industry's pledge to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. And the cost of doing so just got a lot higher according to a new estimate by an industry alliance.

So, is Airbus' delay an acknowledgement of the daunting challenge of getting hydrogen reliably and affordably to airports? Or is it, as skeptics contend, another sign of reluctance by Airbus, Boeing and other manufacturers to invest in development of game-changing technologies? After all, demand for current model aircraft is going just fine.

Joining us to delve into all this are four Aviation Week editors who have closely followed Airbus hydrogen project since it was launched in 2020: Thierry Dubois and Jens Flottau, who are both in Europe, and Guy Norris and Graham Warwick back here with me in the US.

Thierry, I wanted to start with you. You wrote an excellent column in the February 13th edition of Aviation Daily. You write that Airbus's decision to put hydrogen propulsion on the back burner is, quote, "one more sign of commercial aviation having a hard time in its quest for technology solutions to decarbonize." You go on to note that, quote, "Over the last few months, hopes have also been fading in new engine architectures, hybrid electric systems, and sustainable aviation fuels."

We've also reported that Airbus is just shelved CityAirbus, an electric eVTOL project. Finally. today you were at ATR and they've delayed the ATR EVO, which was a hybrid electric turboprop. A lot of discouraging news to go all around.

Thierry Dubois:

Yes, this is very discouraging and what we see at Airbus was aviation's last chance to be credible on sustainability and this is a big wasted opportunity. Of course, I'm not an engineer, I'm not the CEO, Guillaume Faury, but yet doing such a decision -- they say it's a postponement, but it's probably the end of the program 10 years before the planned into service and two or three years before the planned launch. That really raises questions.

They could have worked more, they could have worked longer, and eventually decided not to launch the program. But why stop two or three years before the planned launch? That's a really big question mark for me, especially as some players in green hydrogen production are accelerating. So indeed hydrogen is a huge infrastructure issue, but things are moving.

Joe Anselmo:

Jens Flottau, some people say this is just another and a series of ongoing decisions by Airbus to bring the focus back to its core business and viable technologies to support nearer-term projects such as an open rotor. Do you agree with that logic?

Jens Flottau:

No, I don't actually. Because you see similar delays in the more near-term projects as well. Just look at the planned new next generation narrowbody that they've been looking at. They have clearly said that that is something for the second half of the next decade and the earlier plans are called for that product to be launched much earlier, much sooner, actually two years from now. We don't hear any of that anymore.

There are smaller instances where you can discover the same pattern like the A220-500, the stretched version of the A220, which would've promised a lot of benefits in terms of environmental performance as well because it's a very efficient aircraft That has been pushed to the right as well.

You see a broad trend, which is as Thierry says, very, very discouraging, very negative. You wonder why, I guess we can get into that more broadly later, but I think the current issues, Boeing in crisis, supply chain, production not getting up to where it's supposed to be, with all the negative effects on margins, on revenues, and the effects on management being distracted by having to deal with just the ongoing business. But I fully agree with Thierry, it's discouraging, it's disappointing, and there are a lot of open questions.

Joe Anselmo:

Guy Norris, you broke this story for the Aviation Week Intelligence Network last weekend, but let's be honest, none of us really truly believed Airbus would be fielding a hydrogen-powered airplane in 2035. You didn't believe that, did you?

Guy Norris:

We all thought it was going to be a stretch, to say the least. But we saw that over the past two years particularly, the ambition really was beginning to focus more on a more doable, smaller 100-seat type of program, which kind of was beginning to look as if it was within the realms of possibility, either as a hybrid solution or was something that at least could get the ball rolling for the hydrogen infrastructure.

Graham and I had been monitoring it from the US side. We'd been to a lot of conferences where over the past 12 months we'd begun to pick up definite signs that things were slipping in terms of the schedule. In fact, in January at the AIAA conference that we were at, there was the clearest sign then that plans through Clean Aviation, which as you mentioned has supported heavily Zero-E initiative in Europe, had in fact changed really their program goals to defer or delay the hydrogen related research into the next call, which would really punt it into 2026, 2027. In that case, to establish a TRL level of four or five, which Airbus needed to even remotely look at it as a possibility for a new product, that was, again, shunted down the track.

I think what we're seeing really is, I'm always an optimist in these things, but I don't see it particularly as a massive U-turn, more as a sort of a rejected takeoff, really. Maybe reducing it from takeoff power to, oh, stop on the runway, let's think again and taxi to the end. So I still think things are going, but anyway, it was a shock to see it suddenly do that, but I still think there's a runway out there somewhere.

Joe Anselmo:

So Thierry, Guy said he was shocked by this decision. You and Jens have been interviewing Airbus's top leaders for several years and they never really seemed to me to be very enthusiastic about the hydrogen project in the first place.

Thierry Dubois:

I did believe, maybe naively, but I did believe in the project partly because it was the last chance, again for aviation to be credible. From what I heard and from what I saw, I really felt a lot of involvement, a lot of commitment to hydrogen, both in terms of funding and in terms of technical resources being put in place, being created, several research and technology centers in Europe.

So I'll be honest, I was believing in it, and yes, I saw for a few weeks and months that things were slowing down a bit. But it was aviation's only chance to be fully carbon free one day. The big difference between hydrogen and SAF is that hydrogen gives you 100% reduction in CO2 emissions. So yes, I was surprised and I really believed in it, in short.

Joe Anselmo:

Graham Warwick, you are our resident technology guru at Aviation Week. You've been covering this industry since 1978. Is this a sign that the industry is in the midst of a dramatic pullback in innovation or is it just an acknowledgement that maybe it took on too much?

Graham Warwick:

Well, you've got to realize this is what in Europe they call research and technology, R&T. They call it something different in the US, but the idea is to take an idea and get it to reality, right? It's not product development, it's getting the technology ready.

So when they started this program, and it was before 2020, before that they looked at all of the options and they decided to go hydrogen. I'll say this is the same for batteries. It's exactly the same process that led to the decision to pause CityAirbus and to delay ATR hybrid EVO. You start with a roadmap and you start with assumptions as to where the technology's going to be by the time you have to certify that airplane. They were starting sometime before 2020, making projections for technology that would go into service in 2035. So what we've seen is across the industry is this settling realism about what is possible.

So on the battery side, there were some pretty aggressive projections for where batteries could be and now we're seeing people resetting to what is a more realistic improvement path. It's still an improvement path, but it's not maybe as aggressive as they thought way back before 2020. So you have that on the battery side.

Then Guy and I will both tell you that it was this kind of weird to sit in some of these technical conferences and have one presentation talking about how you would get us a hydrogen airplane into service and another presentation where they were doing basic research into the materials that could operate with liquid hydrogen. It was clear to us that hydrogen technology just wasn't ready. So what Airbus was trying to do was accelerate that readiness. If you actually look at Airbus's statements, they don't actually say that the technology's not going to be ready, they say the infrastructure's not going to

be ready.

You've got to realize that what Airbus was trying to do was develop a full-blown commercial airplane, an Airbus, an airplane that would go into the Airbus range, be sold to major airlines in major air transport markets. They had a high bar to meet for an airplane that could go into service, on day one be able to do a useful job, be reliable, be usable, be able to fly to all places you wanted to fly. So ,they had a high bar to meet.

Now you then switch over to the startups, the ZeroAvias on the hydrogen side, the many others on the battery side, and they're starting a different thing. They say, “I can go into the Shetland Islands, I can go into North Norway, I can go into New Zealand, and I can re-engine a Caravan, or I can re-engine a twin altar, or I can re-engine a Dash 8 or something like that. I can put hydrogen production, put solar panels into an airport, put a hydrolysis plant onto the airport, and generate enough hydrogen to serve that market. “

So, their goal is to get it started, to just get hydrogen in aviation, let people get experience of it.

Paul Eremenko, who founded Universal Hydrogen, one of the first fuel cell airplane producers who closed their doors because they couldn't get funding. But his stated goal was to get ahead of Airbus and prepare the way for Airbus because they were going to do this start small grow big. So what Airbus was trying to do and what the startups are trying to do was very different. The fact that Airbus has delayed because the technology or the infrastructure is not ready, doesn't mean that the startups can't still get going, right? They have less ambition in the short term. So I think we will see that happen.

Joe Anselmo:

I think it's really important too to clarify for our listeners that even Airbus was saying that 2035, they weren't going to have an A320 sized airliner, it was going to be a small aircraft. Even by 2050, hydrogen wouldn't be ready to make a big dent in emissions by itself.

Graham Warwick:

It had to be an airplane that could sell to a Delta, sell to a Lufthansa, and operate the way those airlines want to operate. That's different to selling to a Loganair or a Widerøe in Norway, who's a small operation.

Joe Anselmo:

Guy?

Guy Norris:

They say that a rising tide floats all boats, but without Airbus, is there enough of a tide at all? That's my big worry. Because obviously these projects, as Graham mentioned, they do have a niche, there will be a niche there and that potentially could be exploited. But is it enough to pivot, which is what the industry needs?

We've already said that Airbus has really put the market saying the blame is more on the infrastructure than the raw technology, which has been promising, as Thierry's been covering it from France very closely, as have we over here as well in terms of the actual fundamental work. So, I think that the question now is really, is this going to push the entire initiative back even for the smaller businesses too, and really delay things a lot more than 10 years, which is what they were saying?

Just one last thing I wanted to make a point out was it was very unusual for this to leak out via the union, the Force Ouvriere, I am sorry, I'm probably murdering that pronunciation, but French Union. With Airbus, we are used to Boeing in the US where things leak out through the unions. But for this to have come out through the unions in France, I think was unusual. Maybe really showed that Airbus behind the scenes had been planning this kind of big dramatic industrial push behind the scenes. When they told the union that it wasn't going to happen, that has industrial implications.

Thierry Dubois:

To Graham's point, yes, decisions are made based on the roadmaps. They've been maybe building in a too optimistic way or suppliers don't deliver on their promises. I'm thinking battery technology here. Yes, indeed about the hydrogen infrastructure that is very difficult to put in place.

My concern is that the decision has been made on technologies that Airbus and aviation doesn't master as opposed to aerodynamics for instance, they rely on suppliers for batteries for instance. My concern is that if they want to follow their planned roadmap to net-zero, they're going to rely on an even more external industry, which is SAF, sustainable aviation fuels. Nobody in the aviation industry has said we are going to produce fuels and they cannot even agree with fuel producers on whether the problem is supply or demand. So, I'm very concerned about relying on external industry.

Jens Flottau:

At the same time, I cannot help but think that there must be potential internally for significant improvements in aerodynamics. The 737 is, what is it, 60 years old. The 320 is 1980s. I just cannot believe that we're in 2025 now that Airbus and Boeing are telling us the technology for something that's significantly better that would warrant a new aircraft, isn't there. I just cannot believe that. And that combined obviously with new engines.

The truth is there's huge backlogs. There's no commercial incentive or not enough commercial incentive for the industry to move ahead faster. Just a shame, obviously. The industry is in a relatively comfortable position to put the blame on others. There is no infrastructure for hydrogen as we just heard. They say there's no SAF, there's no power to liquid, there's no synthetic fuels. We always hear that. But at the same time, my worry is that the industry itself isn't doing enough even where it could be doing more.

Graham Warwick:

One of my issues when Airbus first announced this, it was at a point of time where there was a huge amount of interest in hydrogen in Europe. In fact, it was the beginning of the whole green energy push where Europe said, “We're going to go to a hydrogen economy.” Now, I wondered at the time is aviation was getting ahead of the energy system? It goes going to what Thierry says about being dependent on non-aerospace things.

Aerospace operates inside of a fossil energy infrastructure that's been developed over hundreds of years, not for aviation, but for just general energy and aviation plugs into that and uses that. That doesn't exist for hydrogen, but it's being built for hydrogen. So maybe in 10 years time, aviation looks at the hydrogen infrastructure generally for power generation, energy storage, whatever, steel making, whatever you talk about, aviation can then plug into something rather than trying to create something.

But the other issue, and I mentioned this in the story, Glenn Llewellyn who is the head of the zero-emission program [at Airbus], spoke at Wings Club in New York. You were there, Joe, and Christine Boynton, our colleague, was the moderator of the panel. He made two really key points. One, which I totally believe, is that SAF is a sleight of hand, it's an accounting sleight of hand for carbon. You don't reduce carbon emissions, you account for them differently. You say that they're removed from the atmosphere in some way. We are still polluting, but we're removing it from the atmosphere in some way. He said that is not sustainable. At some point or other that will come back and bite us. Hydrogen is the only way to get out of that. If that becomes a problem, hydrogen is the only way out of that. He made that point.

The second point, he said, don't forget China. China is going to hydrogen and it's going to hydrogen in a big way and it's going to hydrogen in the Chinese way of doing it, which is everybody in the government from the central government to provincial government, all aligned in the same direction. So, 10 years from now, the world will be very different when it comes to hydrogen.

Guy Norris:

Well, what about Boeing too? I'm just wondering what the reaction is that Boeing at the moment thinking “We told you so” and what about all that money? Are they going to give it back to Europe to all the European governments for their research funds? It could be a good question.

Graham Warwick:

What this has done is avoid the possibility of a split in the industry, a schism between Europe and the US. We were heading to a world where Europe was going to go hydrogen and the US, was going to say “What's hydrogen?” Now we've got 10 years for the world to kind of get more aligned. I don't know what that world's going to look like, but we've got 10 years, five to 10 years, for that schism to be addressed, maybe.

Joe Anselmo:

Before we wrap up, I just wanted to ask you guys, I had noted in the beginning that there's a new study out that just raise the cost of reaching net-zero for European aviation alone by half a trillion dollars. Graham, you wrote about that in the story you filed with these guys for Aviation Week & Space Technology.

Graham Warwick:

That's all down to SAF. That's all down to the cost of SAF, basically, or largely down to the cost of SAF. The price is not coming down because the volumes are not going up. Even when it gets to volume, it's still going to be more expensive.

Then when you get to power to liquid, which is where aviation wants to get to, as Jens says, power to liquid, that's the synthetic fuel, that is a genuine, you are making reductions there. That is horribly expensive and it's going to be decades before that becomes affordable. That's all baked into that estimate of the cost to 2050.

They last did the report in 2023, we got two or three years of experience with SAF. The price is not coming down, volumes are not going up at the rate that we want. So they've gone in and they've redone that estimate of what the cost of SAF going to be. Even then, we are not reducing emissions, we're simply just accounting for them differently.

Joe Anselmo:

So if there's no hydrogen, we're going to need SAF more than ever?

Graham Warwick:

We're going to need the right SAF. It's got to be eventually power to liquid because that's the only one that gives aviation the right solution. If you have to stay with SAF, power to liquid's the only one. That uses hydrogen, that uses renewable energy, but you're not going to get to where you could get with hydrogen.

Joe Anselmo:

So Thierry, is it time for aviation to stop talking about going net-zero in 2050? Is that a joke now?

Thierry Dubois:

My fear for aviation, not a fear actually, but I think now the only way for aviation is to accept market-based measures, which the entire industry hates. They may have to accept demand management because technology and SAF will be too slow to have a real impact in the next few years or decade. There is a sense of urgency in all this.

Jens Flottau:

That is in fact happening, right? Demand management is happening. The study that you mentioned, Joe, mentions a 20% in reduction in demand because of the additional cost to air travel that we'll see in the next 25 years. So, demand will be lower and there will be less air travel than would've been without the transition costs.

Joe Anselmo:

Well guys, I'm sitting four miles from the White House and I'm not so sure demand management's going to be that popular in the US, at least for the next four years. Great discussion, if not a little depressing. But thank you all for your insights, as always.

That is a wrap for this edition of Check 6. A special thanks to our podcast editor in London, Guy Ferneyhough. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe to Check 6 so you never miss an episode. If you found today's discussion helpful, consider leaving a rating or review wherever you listen to podcasts. Better yet, share this episode with a friend or colleague. Have a great week and thanks again for joining Check 6.

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