Alaska Airlines is teaming up with aviation company ZeroAvia to develop what could be the world's largest zero-emission passenger plane. The first of an entire fleet of commercial aircraft powered by hydrogen.
The maiden flight of the first hydrogen commercial aircraft resulting from this collaboration is expected as early as 2023, but the first route (between London and Rotterdam) is expected in 2024. It could be a milestone in theaviation eco friendly.
The biggest (so far)
The hydrogen plane developed by ZeroAvia is not the first boasted by the company. At the moment, however, it is certainly the largest of the commercial aircraft destined to revolutionize civil flight. It will boast 76 seats, and will travel powered by a De Havilland Q400 turboprop, with the special engine designed from the English company. Technically it will “serve” between 2.000 kW and 5.000 kW of power.
Hydrogen commercial airplanes – some other useful data
Engineers predict that the plane will be able to travel a distance of up to 800 kilometers (500 miles). That would be enough to cover many short-haul flight routes. While long-haul commercial jet travel is still out of the question, the project could very well start a revolution to decarbonize aviation. ZeroAvia's roadmap includes more and more aircraft of this type: the first official flights will be in 2024, as mentioned. In 2030 it will launch planes with up to 200 seats and so on, up to the goals expected in 2040 with commercial planes with over 200 seats capable of traveling more than 9000 kilometres.
The aviation industry is one of the most difficult industries to decarbonize. However, with this collaboration we are one step closer to achieving our goal of making our skies carbon-free.
Val Miftakhov, the founder of ZeroAvia, in a recent statement.
