“A new chapter in aviation history”. This Friday, June 2, the Scandinavian company SAS will open reservations for its first three commercial flights on electric planes in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. 90 tickets (30 per flight) will go on sale to board the future ES-30 of the Swedish start-up Heart Aerospace. However, we will have to be patient with our inconvenience as these maiden flights are not scheduled before…2028.
“Since its inception in 1946, SAS has been one of the airline industry’s pioneers, for example being the first commercial airline operator to fly over the North Pole to dramatically reduce flight time between continents. (. .. ) The fact that we can now invite our passengers to the next big step in the future of aviation is a continuation of this pioneering spirit and an important milestone on our journey towards more sustainable aviation”, said Anko van der Werff, SAS CEO.
Each traveler who wishes to participate in the first electric flight of SAS will be able to reserve a maximum of two seats. The ticket price was set in 1946 Swedish, Danish or Norwegian crowns (between 160 and 260 euros), a nod to the year the airline was founded.
The electric plane, a credible alternative?
In the race to decarbonise, SAS has set itself the goal of net zero emissions by 2050. An “important part” of its action to achieve this “is to develop and use technological innovations such as electric aircraft on shorter routes. And not in vain, if the electric plane can constitute a viable alternative for small-capacity regional flights in the future, its development will not allow the decarbonization of large airlines that carry out long-haul flights due to the excessively low power of their batteries. , as former Safran CEO Philippe Petitcolin explained in 2019:
“In this type of aircraft and distances, surely there will be a hybridization with the electric one that will happen with the thermal engines, but replacing the thermal engines with electric motors must be forgotten. He deceived us that this happened in the automotive sector, but battery electrics do not meet the requirements of commercial aviation “.
After the new factory in November, Safran’s current boss, Olivier Andriès, expressed reservations about the hydrogen plane, “an attractive solution” but one that should not allow the goal of carbon neutrality to be reached by 2050 due to “considerable technical and ecosystem challenges”. . In addition, this alternative would not be suitable for long-haul flights, which represent more than half of the sector’s emissions, but only for “regional aviation, with a range of 1,000 to 1,500 km,” the leader estimated.
Synthetic fuels remain, which today represent the most credible alternative. Their main drawback, however, is that they are about three times more expensive than kerosene and “I don’t think we will ever match the price” of conventional fuels, Boeing Chief Executive David Calhoun warned last week.
Source: BFM TV
