A brand new shape of commercial jet could be in the skies by 2030, if a partnership between Delta Air Lines and Californian aviation startup JetZero goes to plan. The pair are working together to produce a 2027 prototype for a new passenger plane with a “blended wing body” (BWB) that resembles a Stealth bomber.
Shaped like a flying nacho, the distinctive design will have sustainability advantages over today’s “tube and wing” passenger aircraft. Up to 50% more efficient than its predecessors, it will offer reduced emissions and fuel costs and boast roof-mounted engines that are supposed to help cut noise pollution. It is also intended to be compatible with existing airport infrastructure. And even though the aircraft might look very different, it will have the capacity to carry 250 passengers – that’s as many as the traditional wide-body planes that we have grown familiar with over the last 70 years.
Entirely new airframe
Delta is offering up its Sustainable Skies Lab to JetZero, giving the project talent and operational access that will help the manufacturer “prove out and accelerate the commercialization of the BWB airframe technology.”
Hailing the carrier’s “critical” efforts to address aviation’s carbon footprint through “revolutionary technologies”, Amelia DeLuca, Delta’s Chief Sustainability Officer said, “Working with JetZero to realize an entirely new airframe and experience for customers and employees is bold and important work to advance the airline industry’s fuel saving initiatives and innovation goals.”
Tom O’Leary, JetZero cofounder and CEO, meanwhile pressed home the ambitious timeline. “JetZero is working to change the world by bringing to market an aircraft that aims to fly this decade and make immediate and marked progress toward reducing airline energy costs, and the associated emissions,” he said.
Question marks over flying this decade
However, some in the industry have questioned whether such a radical choice of “entirely new airframe” will support the partnership’s aim of flying commercially inside this decade.
Pointing to the high safety standards and comfort norms in aviation manufacturing and operations, Sheldon Jacobson, a professor at the University of Illinois Granger College of Engineering, told Quartz business guide that revolutionising aircraft shape was “a very high bar to overcome” and an endeavour fraught with unintended consequences.
“I cannot see anything like this deployed for widespread commercial travel for another decade,” he added. “The military will be much faster and serve as a convenient test bed.” Nonetheless, JetZero’s press release insists its BWB will enter “commercial service by 2030.”
