by David M. Sykes, Vice Chair, The Quiet Coalition
Insiders say the next big wave of disruptive innovation in commercial aircraft will be quiet, electric engines. In fact, Airbus says they can deliver by the early 2020s. And London’s Heathrow airport has added it’s own $1 million prize to accelerate the race, offering free landing charges for a year to UK’s first electric plane.
Can we get some of those quiet jets in the U.S. too, please? But hurry up, because global air traffic is expected to double in the next 15 years. So if you think it’s noisy out there now, imagine the din with twice as many flights overhead. Clearly something needs to happen quick.
In fact, electrically-powered aircraft are already here (we’ve written about this here). So the experts are serious and aircraft manufacturers, airlines, and regulatory authorities acknowledge that this really will be a major disruption. There are currently between 15 and 100 projects (depending on what you’re counting) underway worldwide on the development of commercial scale electrically-powered airplanes.
So with America’s aerospace leaders (e.g., Boeing and GE) dragging their feet on this, it looks like we’re handing Airbus and others a big win.
Perhaps some of America’s biggest airports should look closely at Heathrow and think about getting into this prize game too. Something needs to be done to wake up America’s air transportation industry that BOTH noise and fuel efficiency matter to their customers and their neighbors. If they don’t change soon foreign suppliers like Airbus will walk away with the business.
