Sustainability transition of the air transport industry: unfolding the interplay of green technologies adoption and operations

Ensuring a greener future for the air transport industry has nowadays become one of the top priorities for Western economies. Technological innovation has always played a key role in aviation, allowing the sector to drastically improve its overall fuel efficiency—and, consequently, reduce its environmental impact—over the last century. However, the efficiency improvements offered by the incremental technological innovations that have been adopted until now (e.g., the use of newer, lightweight aircraft materials, improvements in engine efficiency, and enhancements in aircraft performance) appear to be close to their natural limits. Because of this, to reach its 2050 net-zero environmental target, the air transport industry has recently started to invest in radical technological innovations—such as new aircraft propulsion systems—that promise to have a much lower environmental footprint. The deployment of such technologies, which are assigned a central role in all aviation decarbonization roadmaps, will, however, have a certain impact on the current air transport model, as this will have to be restructured—at least partially—in light of the new operational and technological requirements. At present, a lack of knowledge on how to manage this transformation process calls for research and innovation endeavours from both academia and industry. This PhD thesis aims to investigate the key operations management challenges associated with the adoption and integration of emerging green aircraft technologies into existing operations, as well as the resulting implications for key aviation stakeholders affected by the required operational, infrastructural, and organizational changes. Of the multitude of challenges the industry will have to face during its technology-driven sustainability transition, this thesis focuses in particular on: (1) comparatively investigating the impact of emerging sustainable aircraft technologies on the existing operating ecosystem and the resulting implications for aviation operation and infrastructure; (2) assessing the impact of the different operating requirements of liquid hydrogen (LH2) aircraft on airline operational performance; and (3) framing the organizational transformation process that airlines will have to undergo when introducing LH2 aircraft into their fleets. This investigation primarily focuses on low-cost airline operations since they are the predominant type of operations in European short-to-medium haul aviation, which appears to be the most promising market segment for the introduction of new propulsion technologies. However, results highlight several implications for the entire industry and are of value for a wider set of stakeholders. To address the abovementioned objectives, this thesis adopts an exploratory, inductive research approach involving the use of mixed research methods, including interviews with domain experts, primary and secondary data analysis, and numerical model development. The findings shed light on the expected main operational, infrastructural, and organizational impacts of new aircraft technologies, and provide novel insights into the resulting implications for key industry actors. Specifically, they reveal that, while certain technologies (i.e., SAF) will require minimal adjustments in the current air transport model, others (i.e., electric and LH2 aircraft propulsion) will have a much more significant impact, necessitating the implementation of multiple changes in various areas. In particular, the different operating requirements of LH2 aircraft will in certain cases lead to an increase in turnaround times, hence, in turn, negatively affecting airline operational performance. Also, the adoption of LH2 aircraft technology will require end users, especially low-cost carriers, to undergo a multi-step transformation process since the simultaneous handling of two different aircraft propulsion technologies (i.e., kerosene and LH2) will require numerous organizational and managerial accommodations. In terms of academic value, this PhD thesis provides multiple contributions: (1) it fills a number of research gaps the literature identified as under-researched but critical for advancing the understanding of the sustainability transition of the air transport sector; (2) it offers a novel framework which can be used by future studies requiring a reference baseline of the operations and infrastructural assets that currently constitute the existing operating ecosystem; (3) it determines the areas in which the impacts of new aircraft technologies are currently most uncertain, hence highlighting where further research is more urgently needed; (4) it provides a new numerical model to quantify the potential operational disruptiveness of LH2 aircraft and the resulting effects on airline operational performance; (5) it showcases how conceptual lenses typical of managerial sustainability transition studies can be used to connect and ground in academic discourse empirical findings in an industrial sector (like air transport) in which sustainability transition research has thus far been predominantly driven by policymakers and practitioners. In terms of practical contributions, this thesis offers several new insights useful for policymakers and industrial actors in the planning of the technology-driven sustainability transition of the aviation sector. In particular: (1) it proposes the development of multi-technology airport infrastructural assets as a solution not only for the possible onset of lock-in effects but also for the chicken and egg dilemma currently affecting the sector; (2) it suggests multiple strategies the aviation industry could implement to minimize the potential operational disruptiveness of LH2 aircraft propulsion technology; (3) it advances the understanding of the organizational adjustments low-cost airlines will have to enact when introducing LH2 aircraft into existing fleets.

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