The Impact of Electric Aircraft Taxiing

Abstract

On-board electric motors can be used to drastically reduce the fuel usage during the taxiing phase of aircraft, leading to cost reductions for airlines and lower amounts of harmful emissions. This study analyses the current state of this innovation and its potential impact on aviation. On a global level, full adoption of electric aircraft taxiing is expected to cause a reduction in jet fuel usage of 846 million kg per year, equivalent to 186 million euros of reduced costs and 2.67 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. This results in a reduction of 0.3% of the total global carbon dioxide emissions of the aviation sector. Locally, airports and their surroundings will benefit significantly from the reduced emissions, because a substantial fraction of airport emissions are due to the taxiing phase. Analysis of the effect of electric aircraft taxiing to key stakeholders such as airlines shows that American airlines would reap substantially larger benefits than European competitors because of consistently higher taxi times in the United States. Low-cost carriers are expected to see smaller impact than traditional hub-and-spoke airlines, due to short taxi times in the secondary airports they predominantly fly to. KLM could save 17.3 million kg of jet fuel annually, representing a cost of 3.8 million euros, which would potentially increase profits by 3%, and a carbon dioxide emission of 55 million kg. Since the road to full adoption is still long, a strategic analysis of the fleet shows the marginal yearly cost reduction per installed electric taxiing system starts at 82 thousand euros for the first product, which reduces to 10 thousand after 100 systems have been installed. Especially the flights between Amsterdam and London, Paris and Manchester should be assigned to aircraft with electric taxiing systems, because these flights would have the most impact given their relatively low flight distance and high taxi times.