Is 'NextGen' distracting us from our generational task of decarbonising commercial aviation?

Hasn't the time come for sci-fi terms like next, latest and new generation to be retired in favour of more urgent-sounding labels grounded in realism. 'Future aircraft' tells it like it is.

Star Trek had a Next Generation as far back as the 1980s. It seems more recent, somehow.

The US Federal Aviation Administration then coined the phrase to launch the Next Generation Air Transportation System in 2007, an ambitious program to modernise US skies by 2030 that set goals for safety, efficiency, capacity, access, flexibility, predictability, resilience and environmental impact.

Since then, it is probably with environmental impact that ‘NextGen’ has become most associated, as anything that improves fuel efficiency has been labelled 'NextGen' as we look forward to a future of reduced fuel burn, emissions and cost of flying.

Focus switching from reduction to elimination of emissions

NextGen's biggest achievement is reducing total fuel burn by 40 percent since 1960, but

improving fuel efficiency is no longer commercial aviation's biggest goal.

Emissions have doubled since 1990 as passenger numbers accelerate, and focus has now switched from reducing them to eliminating them altogether.

So it's no surprise to note that ‘NextGen’ is out of fashion and ‘New Generation’ or ‘Latest Generation’ are more preferred these days.

In 2024, an estimated 30 percent of the global fleet was 'Latest Generation', with many more set to convert by 2043.

But is it really accurate to include the progression from 'Previous Generation' to 'Latest Generation' as part of aviation’s decarbonisation journey to net-zero emissions by 2050, or is it just the steady continuation of the last 65 years of fuel efficiency improvements?

To fulfil the journey to net-zero emissions, aviation will need ‘Future Aircraft’, not ‘Latest Generation’ or ‘New Generation’.

More fixed on the elimination of emissions than the reduction, it will mostly use technology that hasn’t been invented yet. 

Three key ways in which Future Aircraft need to evolve

So what are ‘Future Aircraft’? According to Airbus, they are “a new generation of low-emission aircraft built with lightweight, durable and sustainably-sourced materials such as advanced composites, bio-fibres  and bio-sourced resins”.

Integral to ‘Future Aircraft’ are three key components:

• Clever design – the appearance of modern commercial aircraft could radically change as part of an architectural revolution in pursuit of aerodynamic efficiency. This could range from the positioning of the engines to the wingtips becoming foldable. 
• Propulsion – jet fuel is on the way out, as soon as sustainable airline fuels (SAF) can replace them, but how long will this take? A recent article on the Satair Knowledge Hub suggested that commercial aviation would annually need 3 terawatts of alternative energy to make the necessary SAF – three times the amount of power that global wind energy produced in 2023. 
• Connectivity – the use of digitalisation will be key to manufacturing, operations and maintenance. Harnessing data will improve performance, raise safety levels and keep costs down.

Promising innovation in the sector

Commercial aviation is innovating fast to realise net-zero emissions by 2050.

Here are a selection of some of those innovations:

• Blended-wing-body aircraft – with the wings blended into the main body of the aircraft, there is no division, which enables the entire aircraft to more easily generate lift and reduce aerodynamic drag. This improvement can increase fuel efficiency by 50 percent, which is encouraging for new technologies that require vast quantities of power, such as battery-powered aircraft.
• Hybrid electric engine-powered aircraft – for so long a sector weighed down by heavy batteries, two breakthroughs with hybrid propulsion systems in 2023 – the development of a 1 MW motor by MIT engineers and the testing of the world’s first rim-driven jet propulsion motor – suggest we will soon be capable of flying electric aircraft over the ocean. Certainly, there is plenty of funding available in the sector. EU body Clean Aviation, for example, recently pledged 100 million euros to the development of an engine capable of propelling 200-250-passengers a distance of 5,560 km.
• Hydro-electric engines – sourced by cryogenically-stored liquid hydrogen, the aircraft is powered by a hydrogen-electric fuel cell propulsion system. This enables lower tank weights and volume, thus increasing the range and load. Aircraft carrying the forerunner of this technology, the hydrogen-electric powertrain, is likely to hit the skies later this year. According to current plans, it will first fly aircraft with 9-19 seats and a range of 300 nautical miles, followed by larger models in 2027 (40-80 seats), 2029 (100-200 seats), 2032 (200 seats) and 2040 (200+ seats).
• Advanced software tools – AI-powered software is enabling airlines to reduce their fuel use by optimising both routes and fleet logistics.

Airlines open to compelling change

Certainly, aviation is excited by the prospect of ‘Future Aircraft’, according to an early 2025 global survey co-authored by Bank of America (BofA) and Aviation Week, which questioned 492 respondents (including lessors, manufacturers, component suppliers and MROs), of which 45 percent were airlines.

Some 85 percent of airlines (and 78 percent of total respondents) agreed that a 'Future Aircraft' engine would be “compelling to purchase”.

The majority said they would be willing to consider unusual designs if the engine technology was in place.

SATAIR TAKEAWAY

You've probably known for a while not to use the term 'NextGen', but is it time commercial aviation stopped thinking in terms of generations altogether and instead switched its focus entirely towards the future? A generation-by-generation approach to cutting emissions, remembering how much worse it was in the 1960s or 1990s (or how much better it was in 2020), is not going to get the industry any closer to its goal: net zero emissions for all commercial aviation by 2050. Make no mistake, this is a generational challenge that will greatly affect future generations. We can't afford any distractions from our focus on the future.