EasyJet’s plans for electric planes will take longer than a decade, says expert

Budget airline EasyJet wants to fly electric planes within a decade, but its plans could be grounded by regulatory issues, according to an expert.

The UK-based airline has formed a partnership with Wright Electric to build battery-powered aircraft for short-haul routes such as London to Paris, New York to Boston or Seoul to Jeju. It wants every short flight to be electric within 20 years.

“For the first time in my career I can envisage a future without jet fuel and we are excited to be part of it,” said EasyJet’s chief executive Carolyn McCall in The Guardian. “It is now more a matter of when, not if, a short-haul electric plane will fly.”

Wright Electric claims its planes will be 50% quieter and 10% cheaper than traditional aircraft. EasyJet’s chief commercial officer Peter Duffy said the partnership would help Wright Electric develop the technology. “You’re seeing cities and countries starting to talk about banning diesel combustion engines. That would have been unthinkable just a short time ago,” he said. “As technology moves on, attitudes shift, ambitions change and you see opportunities you didn’t see. This is genuinely exciting.”

However, according to Steve Wright, a lecturer in avionics at the University of the West of England, there’s very little chance that electric planes will be in our skies within 10 years.

The first is the business case. “Because the market is so mature, the technology is very mature,” said Wright. The current technology works very well, so airlines are quite cautious.

The second potential hurdle is squeezing enough energy into batteries. Even the best state-of-the-art batteries are almost 100 times less energy-dense than aviation fuel, and there’s the added problem that batteries don’t shed weight as they use up their power.

Wright predicted a move towards hybrid solutions as a stopgap, similar to what’s happening in the automotive industry. “That brings all sorts of useful benefits – incredible energy densities of fuel, but because you’ve got electric you can get rid of some of the inefficiencies,” he said.

An EasyJet spokesperson told the BBC that the company’s preferred option was for a combination of lithium-ion and aluminium air batteries, which would need to get one and a half to two times as powerful to be a viable option.

Wright said he’s confident the battery problem will be solved within 10 years, but that regulatory issues and getting approval from bodies such as the FAA or EASA might prove the biggest hurdle, although they were working hard to be flexible. “It’s not just about developing the technology. It’s about demonstrating that the technology works to the extraordinary levels that we’ve come to accept,” he said.

He added that this technology was definitely on the way, and sees potential for electric planes in the ‘very light jet’ market, where technical regulations might be less stringent. These are smaller planes carrying around five passengers, which could be used for short flights, such as hopping between remote islands.