EasyJet, the UK’s largest airline, is dropping one anti-pollution plan for another as airlines continue to struggle with the carbon contribution of airlines to climate change.
The discount carrier is dropping its three-year-old claim that it is doing its part by purchasing ‘carbon offsets,’ and its focus on supporting electric planes, instead turning toward a plan to reach carbon neutral by using sustainable fuel in the short run, and working with Rolls Royce on a soon-to-be-tested jet engine powered by hydrogen fuel.
In the meantime, it will also offer customers a 50p discount on inflight coffee if they bring their own reusable mug.
The Rolls Royce project is in final preparations for a ground-based test, and EasyJet says it hopes to have an ‘EasyJet-sized’ aircraft using it by 2035. The airline had also been working with U.S.-based Wright Electric on batttery-powered flight, which it now expects to be a factor only in short-haul flying.
EasyJet CEO Johan Lundgren told reporters that “We know that electric might form part of the solution, with a hybrid solution, hybrid electric, and remember that an electric engine can actually use hydrogen as the energy source, so that’s not out of the picture at all. But I think right now, the most promising of these technologies is really the solution that Rolls Royce is working on.”
EasyJet’s carbon offset program, like those of other airlines, has been attacked as representing ‘greenwashing’ rather than actual change because it involves paying cash to others to avert carbon-producing activities they might otherwise have engaged in. The offset payment program will end at the end of the year.
