The Future Of Aviation
Aviation - The Future Of Mobility
Mobility by Air is the Future.
In today’s world, mobility by air, road and water is all about efficiencies, speed, interconnectivity and accessibility by all. However, this raises the issue about sustainability.
Innovation in technology and approaches (e.g. by redefining efficiencies in travel) are essential to redefining mobility.
Cutting-edge technology, such as autonomous devices and ultralight materials, creates opportunities to transform the mobility system by enabling new business models and mobility services.
Innovations abound in aviation, e.g. unmanned aircraft innovations; artificial intelligence; biometrics; robotics; block chain; alternative fuels and electric aircraft. Aviation is therefore ideally positioned to support the innovation discourse and its potential impacts on new mobility.
In a little over a century, our industry has gone from learning to fly, to learning to fly faster, learning to fly further, learning to fly heavier planes, and now to having 100,000 plus commercial flights occurring around the world each and every day – representing over 400 departures per hour!
Aviation has truly has been at the forefront of innovation to become one of the safest and most reliable modes of transportation in the world today.
The volume of air traffic is surprising to some. Aircraft are taking off around the world at a rate of over 400 departures per hour – and that’s only scheduled commercial traffic.
Air transport takes people and cargo around the world, and like bees pollinating the world economy, air transport can have a tremendous impact on the social and economic development and sustainability of a region.
Sharing and leveraging technology and best practices from aviation and all modes of transportation will help ensure the success and sustainability of the emerging mobility sector create trust by the public and become sustainable.
The air transport industry is expanding and the future of aviation is a bright one.
Aviation provides the only rapid worldwide transportation network, generating economic growth, creating jobs, and facilitating international trade and tourism.
Aviation has become the enabler of global business and is now also being recognized by the international community as an essential enabler to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
The aviation sector is growing fast and will continue to grow. The most recent estimates suggest that demand for air transport will increase by an average of 4.3% per annum over the next 20 years.
We also see that the aviation is becoming more accessible to the global population. World wide – 51% of the population lives within 100 km of an International Airport – and 74% live within 100 km of any kind of airport.
So airspace is quickly becoming congested and air traffic is slated to double over the next two decades.
In addition to air space – we have to consider airports themselves. Airports are already built up around population centres and are already operating at high capacity.
The reality is that – in order to accommodate the forecast growth - drastic improvements and efficiencies for airports and air traffic management will need to be found. For this – we need innovation.
Aviation is already known as a driving force of global technology development and innovations.
Engines and aircraft become lighter, quieter and more efficient. Emerging technologies are reshaping with robotics, artificial intelligence, the internet of things, unmanned aircraft systems and the push for hybrid and electric airplanes – just to name a few.
Alternative fuels can significantly change the current scenario of aviation in support of the environmental protection. The vast investment in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data could be seen as a promising way of increasing safety, efficiency and sustainability. These technologies can help improve aviation infrastructure and airspace utilization.
And aviation is now going beyond mobility between continents and cities – it is starting to impact mobility within cities.
These innovations relate primarily to moving goods for now – but they will quickly become viable for moving people as well.
The future of mobility is literally taking off!