New Propulsion Systems for Aircraft in the Future

Speaking at the UN’s SDG Climate Summit in New York, Ajay Singh, Chairman, SpiceJet said that India has committed to fly 10 crore passengers by 2030 on aeroplanes propelled by bio-fuels. “While we flew just one flight out of the 1.5 lakh flown on bio-fuels so far, we have committed that by 2030, India will fly 100 million passengers, the same number of passengers we flew in 2015, using safe fuels,” he said.

Last year, SpiceJet operated its first-ever flight propelled by a blend of jatropha seeds and aviation turbine fuel for a technological demonstration. Ajay Singh also raised the issue of Pakistan imposing a five-month long restriction on the use of its airspace to seek support of UN member-nations to prevent whims and fancies of a country causing such disruptions which lead to burning of more fuel as well as higher carbon emissions. He emphasised on the need for all stakeholders, including refineries, passengers, airports and governments, to work together to turn India’s commitment into reality. He said there was a need to not only find new ways to burn less fossil fuels, but also to find an alternative to fuel-guzzling planes by pursuing the development of electric aircraft.