Airport Experience® News - Retail & Amenities Issue 2023

SUS TA INABIL I T Y SNAP SHOT

KRAL: What do you believe are the most important sustainability initiatives that all airports should be focusing their attention on in the immediate and long-term future? ERNST: The immediate one in front of us is sustainable aviation fuel and making that readily available and figuring out exactly what is every individual airport’s role in that. That is going to be the most significant GHG reduction solution for the aviation industry in the near term. In the near-ish or maybe medium term for airports is just broader energy planning. Airports are growing again—Toronto Pearson is going back into growth mode—which is going to increase our energy requirements. Also, net zero initiatives dramatically increase electrical requirements, which is part of the reason we’re looking at hydrogen as well, to diversify away from electrification. I think airports are going to find that there’s a challenge to ensure sufficient supply of reliable clean energy as we hit a perfect storm of facility growth and more electrification for decarbonization.

And then in the longer term, I think it’s about hydrogen and battery electric flight: What is the concept of operations and what does the infrastructure look like to support those types of aircrafts? Hydrogen’s an entirely different fuel, which is going to have different handling considerations and infrastructure, and then battery electric planes are another major electrical draw— one small aircraft could require a few megawatts of power while it’s charging. KRAL: How far off do you think we are from these types of aircrafts being a reality? ERNST: This is purely a guesstimate, but we’re probably a couple of decades out from hydrogen flight being commercially available. But for battery electric, our hub provider Air Canada has committed to purchasing electric aircrafts as early as 2030—they haven’t said where they’re going to be and they won’t be particularly large or long range, but they are showing up. And as soon as one shows up an airport is going to need the infrastructure and the capabilities to deal with it, whether it’s one or a hundred.

Above: In addition to mitigating future harm to the environment, Toronto Pearson International Airport is focused on dealing with the changes in the climate that are already happening, including maintaining the resilience of its very extensive storm water infrastructure (Moores Creek Stormwater Management Facility pictured).

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