Gatwick plots course for hydrogen flight

According to the partners, the project will cover liquid hydrogen supply and storage at the airport, refuelling and ground handling of hydrogen aircraft, as well as the exploration of shorter-term opportunities for using hydrogen at Gatwick. The airport is the biggest operating base for Easyjet, one of the UK’s largest short and medium haul airlines. As early hydrogen aircraft are likely to operate across shorter routes, the partners believe Gatwick is the ‘ideal testbed’ for R&D into critical support infrastructure for hydrogen flight. 

“Alongside Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF), hydrogen stands out as having real potential to help us decarbonise Scope 3 emissions at the airport, particularly for the short haul aircraft that dominate London Gatwick’s operations,” Stewart Wingate, London Gatwick’s CEO said in a statement. 

“In parallel we’ve accelerated our plans and aim to be net zero for the emissions we control – Scope 1 and 2 - ten years early, by 2030. We still have a long way to go and a lot of hard work to do, but today’s exciting partnership is an important early step toward reaching our net zero ambitions.” 

The project will be rolled out under Airbus’ Hydrogen Hubs at Airports framework, a programme launched to promote the further expansion of hydrogen infrastructure in aviation. To date, agreements have been signed with partners and airports in 13 countries including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Spain, South Korea, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. Airbus’s ZEROe Project is targeting getting a hydrogen powered aircraft in the sky by 2035. 

“We know hydrogen has the versatility to be an excellent fuel source for decarbonising the industry,” said Glenn Llewellyn, Airbus vice president of the ZEROe Project. 

“We’ve set ambitious targets to fly on hydrogen by 2035 and this technology needs to be supported by reliable and tested infrastructure. Sharing knowledge and best practice at airports will be critical for building the right hydrogen ecosystem around the world and we look forward to working with all consortium members to develop the support for the technology and end-to-end hydrogen supply chain that will power future flight.”