Airships may be the future of air travel

Just one short-haul flight a year produces 10 per cent of our individual carbon emissions. We could go back to trains for our traveling, which produce about half the CO2 of a plane, but you don’t always have the time. What if we could get the speed of air travel with the lower emissions of ground-travel? Enter the airship.

When it comes to our individual carbon footprint, air travel is the emission-spewing Dumbo in the room. Flying less is the most impactful action you can take to bring down your CO2 quota. Although aviation currently accounts for only 2 per cent of the global carbon footprint, its impact is taking off pretty fast. With the GHG emissions of the hydrocarbons-guzzling aircraft engines expected to increase more than 4 times by 2045, flying could reach 25 per cent of the global carbon budget by 2050. So, what do we do? A UK company, Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV), is launching a short-range airship service that will water down the carbon emissions of flight by 90 per cent. By 2025, you may be able to hop onboard their Airlander 10 and get dropped off a couple of hundred miles away. Because of its shape, the Airlander 10 has been nicknamed “the flying buttocks” Thankfully the only gas inside this bad boy is helium. But airships could do more than just make us feel less guilty about a return flight on the weekend.

One big benefit is that airships don’t require special infrastructure since flying boats don’t need a runaway for taking off and landing. This could translate into smaller sites located closer to cities, saving people from long commutes to airports, but the airship flexibility would be extremely beneficial for delivering food and humanitarian aid to isolated areas. Sounds uplifting … but before delving into the tech feasibility, let’s jump onboard our DeLorean balloon to fly back in time to where airships came from.

More cargo, less carbon emissions, no infrastructure required. Sounds like airships are on the rise, right? But is there anything that could hold them down? or on the water? Cost might be one thing. One factor that could inflate the airships operational cost is the gasbag filling. And I’m not talking about myself. Helium is a non-renewable source and we may experience a shortage in the future.

While hydrogen could work as an alternative for unmanned cargo missions, it would probably be too risky to use with passengers on board. According to Julian Hunt, a researcher at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), using a cargo airship would currently cost up to 50 times more than standard ships. He also said we should invest up to $100 billion over the next 20 years in technological improvements to make airshipping compete with conventional shipping.

 Sir David King, the former UK Chief scientist and climate change specialist is more optimistic than Hunt, saying that the cost of a Varialift airship would be comparable to a jumbo jet. Also, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), airships would be more cost-effective than jetliners for freight transport. That’s because of the lower fuel consumed during take-off and landing as well as the higher payload carried by the flying boats.34 The UK Advanced Technologies Group Ltd. (ATG) estimated the freight cost per ton kilometre for three hybrid cargo airships of different capacity. At the lowest payload, the airship would cost slightly more than a standard aircraft.

Undecided