Emissions reduction potentials in business aviation with electric aircraft

Abstract

Under the looming climate crisis, public concerns have been raised regarding the environmental impacts of private jet flights. Electric aircraft are currently considered one of the most encouraging technological keys to significantly reducing the environmental impacts of aviation. This research aims to study the replacement of currently used business jets with fully electric aircraft. This study is based on actual flight data of a European business carrier. The carbon dioxide emissions reduction potential for different aircraft ranges was estimated. Obtained results showed that with fully electric aircraft the studied business carrier could significantly reduce its annual emissions by up to 93%. On a per-passenger basis, the emissions could decrease from 6,787 g of carbon dioxide equivalent per passenger kilometre to 449 g. However, as electric aircraft will operate at a slower speed than business jets, flight times would increase by 10–41 min, depending on the distance.