Altitude

In this month’s Altitude, we look beyond the horizon of traditional aviation to explore one of the most promising innovations in sustainable flight: wake energy retrieval - a technique inspired by birds flying in formation that could help reduce fuel consumption on long-haul flights by up to 5% - the equivalent of 6 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

We’re joined by Airbus’ Laura Montironi, the leader of Project Geese – the aptly named collaborative research initiative that successfully completed a series of eight trial flights over the North Atlantic late last year.

Delta Captain, Kevin May shares his view from the flight deck, describing what it was like to fly an A350 as part of the trial, and how advancing WER research fits into Delta’s broader sustainability commitments.

And Andreas Petrikat, Senior Researcher at NATS walks us through the realities of integrating wake energy retrieval into modern ATC operations, and how truly scalable the idea is in the world’s busiest oceanic airspace.