On 23 October, Etihad Airways operated a special sustainable flight onboard its B787-10 “Greenliner” from London to Abu Dhabi. I was onboard this flight to discover what’s a sustainable flight about?
I was initially skeptical about these marketing “green” flights but I discovered a few good initiatives onboard. The flight demonstrates several initiatives to reduce CO2 emissions including using no plastic in-flight products, coordination with air traffic control for optimized flight routing, use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), contrail avoidance technology and airport handling processes.
The flight was able to perform continuous ascent and descent from both London and Abu Dhabi to reduce flight time and emission. After landing, the flight was powered by one engine only in Abu Dhabi. At the end of the flight, I interview the pilot on the technology deployed, coordination with ANSP and other industry stakeholders.
