Insight
The future of aviation
24 Apr 2023
Olga Gutierrez
Project Architect
From growing concerns over climate change to the need for increased efficiency, it is clear the industry needs to find ways to adapt in order to remain sustainable and profitable. Project Architect, Olga Gutierrez, explores the two pillars of aviation's future – sustainability and digitalisation – and how they will transform airports in the upcoming years.
As the world continues to advance at an unprecedented pace, the aviation industry is also facing a multitude of challenges.
During the past four years air transit has declined, but the industry has kept on working and facing new demands. It is expected that airports will achieve pre-pandemic passenger activity by 2024, but at the same time, the aviation industry is facing two big challenges that will transform airports in the coming years: sustainability and digitalisation.
The aim to deliver Net Zero aviation by 2050 poses the biggest challenge, and indeed the competition to be the first airport that commits to it has already started. With the UK holding status as a world leader in aviation, it does not want to be left behind – it wants to lead, and everything is now moving towards airports achieving the Net Zero objective before the deadline.
Achieving the objective goes beyond just estates and assets. Naturally fuel will form a huge consideration for this industry, and transatlantic flights with no carbon emissions will be a reality in the future. This is an area that has been advancing rapidly in recent years, and aerospace companies have intensified their research on new aircrafts powered by sustainable fuel, such as hydrogen.
These new fuels will not just change the way we fly and will certainly require new civil infrastructures to support production and transportation of the fuel itself. They will mean we will likely see the biggest investments in the industry centring around supporting the move to new sustainable fuels, with the new technology converging with other drivers to transform airports.
Changing ways of working also support the aviation industry in other areas, including the smooth experience of passengers and providing an attractive career opportunity for hiring new staff.
For example, the pandemic inevitably changed the passenger experience within airports, with a new touchless approach being essential to ensuring the healthiness of systems and their use, while also creating a streamlined journey process to make travel much easier for passengers as numbers return.
We are witnessing a new revolution within the aviation sector at all levels that will change the industry as we know it today, with sustainability, healthiness, and ease at the centre of it all.