UK budget airline easyJet is set to trial a new hybrid fuel cell system designed to reduce both carbon and air pollution emissions from its planes.
easyJet will trial the new hybrid planes later this year (click to enlarge)
Working in partnership with its industry partners and suppliers, easyJet hopes to begin trials later this year for the ‘cutting edge’ technology, which uses a fuel cell to capture energy from the aircraft’s breaks when landing.
This energy is then used to ‘taxi’ planes between boarding area of an airport and the runway before and after take-off, instead of using the plane’s jet engine, as is usually the case.
The company said that due to the high frequency and short sector lengths of its operations, around 4% of the airline’s total fuel annual fuel consumption is used when its aircraft are taxiing.