Farnborough Air Show 2024 – What to Expect

With just under three weeks to go before Farn­bor­ough Air Show 2024, it’s a good time to look at some of the key themes that will shape this huge gath­er­ing of avi­a­tion and aero­space giants and start-ups alike.

Sus­tain­abil­i­ty

Despite the pub­lic per­cep­tion that avi­a­tion is one of the largest con­trib­u­tors to CO2 emis­sions, research demon­strates avi­a­tion is respon­si­ble for only 2.5 to 3.5 per cent of car­bon emis­sions.

Yet the indus­try has a vital role to play in deliv­er­ing a more sus­tain­able future.

Both the main air­frame man­u­fac­tur­ers will be keen to show off their cre­den­tials at the show. Boe­ing will be keen to stress how its new­er air­craft are far more effi­cient than pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions.

Com­bined with renew­able ener­gy and clean­tech inno­va­tion, the com­pa­ny is look­ing to demon­strate real progress. I was par­tic­u­lar­ly struck by its Cas­cade mod­el­ling tool to enable air­lines and oper­a­tors to see the impact of com­bin­ing strate­gies to deliv­er long term car­bon reduc­tions.

Mean­while Air­bus will be keen to stress its com­mit­ment to hit its goal of net zero emis­sions by 2050. This time last year the com­pa­ny show­cased its first 100 per­cent sus­tain­able air fuel (SAF) flight for the new A321neo air­craft.

The com­pa­ny has an ambi­tious vision that is sup­port­ing var­i­ous routes to net zero (solar flights any­one?). Air­bus recog­nis­es there is a long jour­ney ahead – but has invest­ed in SAF and is show­cas­ing the poten­tial of elec­tric and hydro­gen in the future. I am keen to see how long this will take.

eVTOL progress

One of the most inter­est­ing devel­op­ments to look out for at Farn­bor­ough will be how Urban Air Mobil­i­ty (UAM) deliv­ers sus­tain­able, con­ve­nient and autonomous new forms of trans­porta­tion.

I am curi­ous to know more about the spe­cif­ic time­lines to launch some of the key play­ers such as Joby and Ver­ti­cal Aero­space among many oth­ers.

Insight from data dri­ving the future of avi­a­tion

So much of the main­stream tech­nol­o­gy we take for grant­ed was cre­at­ed for aero­space or avi­a­tion so I am always keen to see how the tech­nol­o­gy and avi­a­tion indus­tries com­bine.

Thanks to con­nect­ed sen­sors and IoT appli­ca­tions, there is more data avail­able than ever before. AI and machine learn­ing means the indus­try can inter­ro­gate this data and gen­er­ate insight in real time. I will be look­ing for the com­pa­nies that can best opti­mise this for a more seam­less trans­port future.

Whether it is opti­mis­ing pas­sen­ger man­age­ment through an air­port, onboard­ing and offload­ing freight more effi­cient­ly or com­bin­ing data from var­i­ous sources (weath­er, traf­fic, opti­mal rout­ing and oth­ers) to deliv­er a faster and more sus­tain­able flight.

I am keen to see how this can trans­form the avi­a­tion indus­try. I will be look­ing to learn more about Sees.ai, one of the AI start-ups attend­ing the show as well as check­ing how Hexa­gon is using data to deliv­er a safer, more effi­cient and more sus­tain­able avi­a­tion future.