By Tom Dent and Karen Keiser
Special to The Times
We are at the start of the greatest transformation in flight since the development of the jet engine. It is not going to happen overnight, and we won’t see large, emissions-free commercial aircraft anytime soon, but like what we have witnessed with space exploration, technological advancements will continue rapidly.
Airline investments show where we are headed. Last summer, United Airlines entered into an agreement to purchase 100 electric aircraft equipped with conventional-engine backup from a Swedish startup. Air Canada is looking to acquire electric planes from the same startup, Heart Aerospace. Other companies are developing electric, hybrid and hydrogen fuel planes, including electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft (EVTOLs), which don’t need full-length runways. Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), a biofuel without the hydrocarbon pollution of jet fuel, has been tested in conventional jets and passed muster. Businesses are laying plans for these advances in quiet, clean, convenient aviation to be in use in one form or the other by the end of the decade.