Etihad Airways is accelerating efforts to become the world’s most environmentally sustainable airline, a move COO Mohammad Al Bulooki contended does not amount to a marketing ploy but a strategy to deliver on its shareholders' and the aviation industry’s commitment to carbon-neutral growth. The Abu Dhabi operator last week pledged to achieve zero net carbon emissions by 2050 and to halve its 2019 net emission levels by 2035. “It is very rare to say from a fossil fuel-producing nation historically that a United Arab Emirates airline takes it [environmental sustainability] to heart and embedded it in its DNA,” Al Bulooki asserted, speaking at an event marking the arrival of Etihad's latest “eco-flight” into Brussels and the presentation of Etihad’s Towards Sustainable Aviation white paper.

Flight EY 57 operated with a Boeing 787, which forms the basis of Etihad’s Greenliner program. Announced in November last year in cooperation with Boeing, the long-term research program will take off this week when the carrier takes delivery of a Dreamliner featuring a specially themed livery to highlight its sustainability mission. Etihad will dedicate its entire fleet of 787s—it currently operates thirty -9s and seven -10s—as flying testbeds and open the program to approved partners to give them the opportunity to test their own sustainability initiatives, products, and processes aboard any of the 40-plus international routes on which Etihad has deployed the aircraft type. Al Bulooki insisted the airline would “work with anybody and anyone, not just the big brand names,” who can help reduce aviation’s environmental footprint and carbon emissions.

The delivery flight of the "Greenliner" 787 from Boeing’s assembly plant in Charleston, South Carolina, to Abu Dhabi will use sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) produced in the U.S., though Etihad also partners in local initiatives that produce SAF. “Next to our headquarters is a facility that develops and refines biofuel from saltwater-tolerant plants. People are surprised by that,” said Al Bulooki, who noted that the company recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Abu Dhabi Waste Management Center to convert municipal waste into jet fuel.

European Commission director-general for transport Henrik Hololei identified alternative fuels as a “game-changer” that could help decarbonize air transport in the short and medium-term so the sector can contribute to the European Commission’s Green Deal that aims to make Europe the world’s first climate-neutral continent by 2050. “The aviation industry’s openness and readiness to deploy SAF is very high,” he said, recognizing that the “market has to be created, the predictability has to be created, and the infrastructure has to be created.” He vowed his department this year would propose a regulatory framework to incentivize and accelerate the uptake of SAF.  

In response to a question by AIN, whether this legislative proposal would include the introduction of an EU-wide blending mandate, Hololei said it was too early in the process to tell. “It is one of the elements we will certainly look at,” he said.