Key Takeaways
As airlines navigate unprecedented delivery delays and mounting environmental pressures, regulatory modernization emerges as a critical pathway to achieving efficiency gains.
Delivery Impact: Aircraft delivery delays from both major manufacturers significantly impact airlines' ability to achieve emission reduction targets, with Boeing delivering 305 aircraft (100 behind pace) and Airbus struggling to meet reduced targets for 2024.
In addition, airlines face delays in entry into service of new aircraft models such as the 737 MAX 10 and 777X.
The following key insights highlight the opportunities for government-airline collaboration:
Regulatory Innovation: Risk-based approaches to fuel requirements, demonstrated by EASA's fuel scheme concept, could reduce European flight emissions by 1% (3 million tonnes CO2 annually) without compromising safety standards.
Infrastructure Optimization: Successful regional initiatives like NEFAB show that coordinated airspace management can deliver substantial efficiency gains, achieving 7% flight time reduction and corresponding emissions decrease.
Strategic Solutions: Airlines and governments must challenge legacy regulations and embrace data-driven approaches to unlock additional efficiency gains, from reserve fuel requirements to equipment mandates, while maintaining safety standards.
The aviation industry's ambitious goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, as outlined in IATA's Fly Net Zero commitment, faces new challenges due to aircraft delivery delays.
With 13% of global airline emission reduction coming from new, fuel efficient aircraft and new propulsion technologies, delays in aircraft deliveries significantly hinder achieving the industry’s objectives for emission and noise reduction.
Airlines are struggling to find additional ways to overcome this aircraft delay-induced gap in efficiency gains. Governments could provide a unique opportunity by bold but necessary political and regulatory decisions.
Industry actions: current airline efficiency initiatives
Since fuel consumption directly impacts both cost and emissions, fuel efficiency improvements have been in the airline DNA for a very long time.
Airlines continuously work to reduce the fuel consumption per passenger by implementing:
Weight reduction programs
Optimized flight planning to reduce fuel burn
Operational changes such as single engine taxiing and reduced GPU use
Aircraft modifications and innovations such as winglets and the “sharkskin”
Improved route planning techniques to improve load factors
Fleet modernization, replacing older aircraft with new, fuel-efficient planes
Airlines cannot do it alone:
governments need to take their responsibility
While airlines have many opportunities to reduce fuel burn per passenger, the industry is also very much dependent on legislation and infrastructure.
Faced with persistent delays in new aircraft deliveries - Boeing only delivering 305 new aircraft through October 2024 (100 behind last year's pace), while Airbus has delivered 559 aircraft and struggles to meet its reduced target of 770 for the year, down from an original goal of 800 - and even more worrisome, delayed introduction into service of the latest generation of aircraft and engine designs, such as the 737 Max 7 and 10 versions and the 777X, airlines need the help of governments to achieve their emission reduction objectives.
Various governments are trying to lower emissions by taxing aviation and air travel, with the objective of lowering demand, which would result in less flying. Other measures include capping or reducing aircraft movements at airports, directly limiting flying.
While these measures might help reduce emissions, they do put pressure on the profitability of airlines, which in turn makes it more difficult for airlines to invest in new aircraft, processes and technologies to achieve the Fly Net Zero ambitions. In addition, these measures will have an adverse effect on the important economic and social contribution of aviation to society.
So, is there a way to preserve the positive contribution of aviation and achieve the Fly Net Zero objectives? What if airlines and governments started to cooperate and overhaul regulations and policies to maximize fuel efficiency within airline operations?
International cooperation and up to date, customized and risk-based regulation should become the norm
The airline industry is a highly regulated industry. Restrictions include limitations in commercial freedoms to operational limitations and requirements.
Many of the operational regulations share the same objective: making aviation the safest mode of transportation in the world. Even though safety should never be compromised, we also must recognize that aircraft and engine technology, forecasting and prediction methodologies, IT systems and airline operational processes have significantly advanced over the past 100 years and regulations should take this into consideration.
In addition, harmonization of regulations internationally is required to create a level playing field and remove diverging and sometimes even contradictory requirements. Further harmonization is also required in critical infrastructure and Collaborative Decision-Making cooperation.
Weight reduction, one ashtray at a time
Have you ever wondered why modern planes still have an ashtray in the bathroom even though smoking has been banned for longer than most of us remember? Very simple: the regulations have not been updated; it is still required by law.
Removing an ashtray from all airplane toilets will not have a huge impact on fuel efficiency, however, this is just one of the many examples where aviation regulations have not kept up with advances in industry. Taking the sum of many of even the smallest efficiency gains will result in a significant impact.
Reserve fuel requirements: risk based or one-size-fits-all
The concept of minimum reserve fuel has been a cornerstone of aviation safety since the industry's inception. When commercial aviation first established minimum fuel requirements, the philosophy was simple: carry more fuel than necessary. Early regulations mandated substantial reserves, reflecting the limited accuracy of weather forecasting, basic flight planning tools, and fewer diversion options. These conservative approaches served the industry well but came at a cost – both economic and environmental. Current data-driven and highly improved forecasting allows for a much more precise fuel consumption calculation, reducing the need for these "excessive" reserves.
Today's regulatory landscape reveals interesting differences in approach. EASA's fuel scheme concept, introduced in 2022, allows operators to develop individual fuel schemes based on their operational capability and risk assessment. This marks a significant shift from prescriptive to performance-based regulation. The potential impact is significant - these changes could reduce European flight emissions by approximately 1%, equivalent to saving 3 million tonnes of CO2 annually. For perspective, this represents potential fuel savings of 0.29 kg per minute on short-haul flights and 2.31 kg per minute on long-haul flights.
"There is no reason to lift up more fuel reserve into the sky than necessary – lifting fuel burns more fuel. Most importantly, this can be done without compromising safety – the reduction is possible thanks to better assessment methods and better data which allow airlines to carry out a more precise risk assessment." -Jesper Rasmussen - EASA Flight Standards Director
The FAA's approach to fuel requirements has evolved significantly. Initially through Operations Specification B043, carriers could optimize fuel loads based on historical performance data. Building on this foundation, the FAA introduced the more advanced B343 Performance-Based Contingency Fuel program in 2016, which allows operators to set unplanned contingency fuel requirements based on their demonstrated fuel-planning performance. This evolution enables operators to optimize fuel loads specific to airplane make and model, city pair route, and arrival time window at the destination airport.
These potential efficiency gains demonstrate how data-driven approaches to fuel planning could significantly impact aviation's environmental footprint. Harmonizing regulations worldwide to risk-based reserve fuel requirements will contribute to a more fuel-efficient industry.
Challenge the status quo: do we really need life jackets?
The life jacket is for many the highlight of the inflight safety demonstration but does seem a little out of place on flights which do not cross any significant body of water.
These life jackets are under your seat in case of a landing on water, a comforting thought to have a level of protection in such an emergency. However, a quick search of landings on water by passenger aircraft over the past 20 years only brings up the famous Hudson River landing of US Airway flight 1549 back in 2009. This brings up the question, do these statistics really warrant mandatory life jackets on board?
With an approximate weight between 0.5 and 1.5 kilo per life jacket, airlines could easily save around 200 kilos per narrowbody, which is the approximate weight equivalent of 2 passengers with their baggage. Removing these life jackets results in a significant emissions reduction if implemented across the globe.
Clearly, a more detailed safety analysis should be performed before such a decision is taken, but the pressing need to find even more fuel efficiency gains means we should be willing to openly challenge and discuss the status quo.
Expert Insight
"Governments and airlines need to think out of the box and be willing to challenge the status quo to drive fuel efficiency improvements. The industry must consider all options to bridge the efficiency gap caused by delivery delays. Embracing risk-based regulation and considering seemingly radical concepts such as removing life jackets from commercial aircraft is key. It is about finding the right balance between innovative solutions and maintaining the industry's exemplary safety standards." -Koen Karsbergen, Principal at Air52 Aviation Consultants
Creating efficient flight routes:
the Single European Sky, two Decades of Promise, Progress, and Persistent Challenges
Europe's fragmented airspace has long been recognized as one of aviation's most costly inefficiencies. The Single European Sky (SES) initiative, first proposed in 1999 and formally launched by the European Commission in 2004, promised to revolutionize European air traffic management. Yet, twenty years later, the vision of a unified European airspace remains partially realized.
The SES initiative emerged from a compelling need: Europe's airspace management system was causing unnecessary delays, burning excess fuel, and creating avoidable costs. The initiative's original goals were striking in their ambition: reducing flight times by 10%, cutting air navigation costs by 50%, and decreasing environmental impact through shorter, more efficient routes.
Despite overall implementation challenges, several successful initiatives demonstrate the potential of a unified approach. The Northern European Functional Airspace Block (NEFAB), comprising Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and Norway, has achieved notable efficiency gains. By 2023, NEFAB reported a 7% reduction in flight times across their airspace and a corresponding decrease in CO2 emissions.
Despite this and other success stories, major challenges have consistently hindered full implementation. These include the complexity of technological integration and national interests that continue to overshadow the pan-European vision. Nations show resistance to changes that might affect sovereignty or revenue streams for national air navigation service providers.
As we approach 2025, the industry faces a critical juncture. The technological capability to achieve a truly unified airspace exists, but political will and institutional alignment remain essential prerequisites. Success stories like NEFAB demonstrate that regional cooperation can deliver tangible benefits. We now need governments to take bold political decisions to help the airline industry deliver emission reductions.
Conclusion
The aviation industry's path to Fly Net Zero is a multi-faceted approach combining immediate operational measures with supportive government policies.
While new aircraft deliveries remain delayed, additional and innovative initiatives are required to help airlines maintain on their path to reduce emissions while continuing to deliver their economic and social contributions to society. These
Key to these initiatives is transforming the regulatory environment into up-to-date, customized and risk-based regulations, without jeopardizing the high safety standards we enjoy today.
This perspective is part of Air52's ongoing analysis of industry developments and strategic trends.
References
IATA (2024). Fly Net Zero Initiative
Boeing Commercial Market Outlook (2024)
Airbus Global Market Forecast (2024)
EASA (2023). Fuel Scheme Implementation Report
FAA (2023). Performance-Based Contingency Fuel Program B343
NEFAB (2023). Annual Performance Report
European Commission (2023). Single European Sky Progress Report
ICAO (2023). Environmental Report