Ansys study finds more than 60% of consumers are concerned about CO2 emissions

More than 60% of con­sumers are wor­ried about car­bon diox­ide (CO2) emit­ted from air­craft and would pay more for green­er air trav­el, accord­ing to a com­pre­hen­sive con­sumer sur­vey com­mis­sioned by Ansys.

An online sur­vey was con­duct­ed by Atom­ik Research among 6,029 respon­dents from the Unit­ed States, the Unit­ed King­dom, France, and Ger­many. Research field­work took place between 8–15 March. Atom­ik Research is an inde­pen­dent cre­ative mar­ket research agency that employs researchers cer­ti­fied by the Mar­ket Research Soci­ety (MRS) and abides by the MRS code.

Released at last week’s Paris Air Show, Ansys’ Sus­tain­able Avi­a­tion Sur­vey also explores con­sumers’ con­cerns with avi­a­tion-relat­ed air pol­lu­tion as well as their expec­ta­tions for next-gen­er­a­tion air trav­el.

As glob­al avi­a­tion lead­ers and organ­i­sa­tions aim to reach net-zero car­bon emis­sions by 2050, air­craft man­u­fac­tur­ers are embrac­ing Ansys’ lead­ing-edge dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion tech­nolo­gies to devel­op more effi­cient air­craft, engines, and propul­sion sys­tems.

Of con­sumers polled in Ansys’ sur­vey, near­ly 70% said they would be more like­ly to trust alter­na­tive fuel sources like sus­tain­able avi­a­tion fuel (SAF), elec­tric, hybrid-elec­tric, or hydro­gen-pow­er if the tech­nol­o­gy was exten­sive­ly sim­u­lat­ed and test­ed using estab­lished meth­ods applied to air­craft safe­ty.

Addi­tion­al high­lights of the sur­vey include sus­tain­abil­i­ty, with a major­i­ty of con­sumers con­cerned about CO2 emis­sions (63%) and would pay for green­er air trav­el (65%) 46% would trav­el in an air­craft pow­ered by sus­tain­able avi­a­tion fuel (SAF) in the next 5 years, 36% in elec­tric, 38% in hybrid-elec­tric, and 38% in hydro­gen-pow­ered air­craft.

About a third of con­sumers (32%) are more like­ly to fly with air­lines com­mit­ted to reduc­ing their car­bon foot­print. Most respon­dents (82%) would be com­fort­able fly­ing in next-gen­er­a­tion air­craft at speeds of 3,500 mph ver­sus stan­dard air­craft that flies at 560 mph to get to their des­ti­na­tions faster, as 50% of respon­dents report­ed that they have not trav­elled some­where in the past due to a long flight.

More than half of con­sumers (57%) expect to fly in an elec­tric ver­ti­cal take-off and land­ing (eVTOL) air­craft at some point in their lives, cit­ing poten­tial ben­e­fits for dai­ly com­mut­ing, includ­ing a reduc­tion in stress (27%), road rage (26%), and car­bon foot­prints (35%). Almost half (47%) of con­sumers polled are pre­pared to fly in an autonomous plane in their life­times.

Despite antic­i­pa­tion to take an autonomous flight, the top con­cern for 57% of con­sumers is the absence of a pilot to respond to poten­tial exter­nal or inter­nal issues such as tur­bu­lence and flight con­trol, respec­tive­ly. For alter­na­tive air­craft such as SAF-pow­ered planes, half of cus­tomers wor­ry that tech­nol­o­gy is not proven yet and almost 40% fear a tech­nol­o­gy fail­ure.

“Con­sumer research is essen­tial as the avi­a­tion indus­try trans­forms to meet the demands of con­sumers and needs of our plan­et,” said Walt Hearn, senior vice pres­i­dent of world­wide sales and cus­tomer excel­lence at Ansys.