Airbus has a grand vision for a next-generation, single-aisle aircraft that would improve fuel efficiency by 20% to 30%.
Such an aircraft, for which Airbus has set a loose buildout goal of the second half of the 2030s, would rely on breakthrough engine and wing technologies to achieve the efficiency improvements, along with advances in aircraft fuselage materials and new abilities to use battery power for non-flying functions such as taxiing and lighting and air circulation in the cabin environment.
The efficiency improvements would couple with the growth in sustainable aviation fuel to provide substantially larger overall emissions reductions as the global aviation industry pushes toward the challenging United Nations-backed goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2050.
Speaking at the Airbus Summit in Toulouse, France, on Tuesday, Bruno Fichefeux, the company's head of future programs, acknowledged that work on next-generation technology still has a long way to go.
"Today we are not at the level of the recipe," he said. "We are at the level of the ingredients."
A new propulsion setup for Airbus jets?
For engines, Airbus envisions an open-fan propulsion system to replace the enclosed turbofans that power today's modern jets. Improving engine performance would require building bigger fans, said Mohamed Ali, senior vice president of engineering for the engine maker CFM International. But the aircraft industry is nearing the productive limit for increasing fan size within an enclosure due to constraints caused by engine drag. Such constraints would not be present in an open-fan engine environment.
Airbus and CFM have been conducting extensive testing on the concept and are targeting an initial open-fan engine test flight with an A380 jumbo jet by the end of the decade.
How folding wings could help Airbus
For wings, Airbus is in testing and early development work for a folding design.
Longer and more slender wings are required to create less drag and more lift, said Sue Partridge, head of Airbus' Wing of Tomorrow program, as she invoked the effortless flight of a long-winged albatross soaring on air currents.
But there are hundreds of thousands of airport gates around the world that aren't designed to handle wings of the length Airbus envisions, she said.
That's why Airbus has built two wing demonstrators, with a third in the works, for testing of folding wings. The manufacturer envisions a wing that would fold in upon landing for taxing and parking at the gate, then fold out for take-off and flight.
"We are really working hard as a team to make the wing of tomorrow a reality today," Partridge said.
Another important aspect of the next generation wing design, Partridge explained, will be lighter and stronger components than what are used today.
Airbus is also studying similar improvements across the fuselage of aircraft as another avenue to improving overall fuel efficiency.
Meanwhile, the manufacturer believes that by developing battery-powered hybrid-electric propulsion to supplement jet fuel, it can reduce aircraft carbon emissions by 5%. In December, Airbus conducted a hybrid-electric demonstration flight in conjunction with aerospace developers Safran and Daher. Such systems wouldn't provide in-air propulsion, but could power other aircraft functions, including on-ground movements and in-cabin lighting and air conditioning.