Regional air travel could soon take off, according to partners Axel Esqué and Robin Riedel and coauthors, thanks to technology advances (battery-electric, hybrid, and hydrogen aircraft), a greater focus on sustainability, growing frustration with road and airport congestion, and the emergence of mobility-as-a-service. However, the aerospace industry will need to overcome a recent decline in the category: in 2019, for example, air travel accounted for just 4 percent of all journeys between 150 and 800 kilometers in the European Union and approximately 8 percent in the United States.
Image description:
Two waterfall graphs show different transportation modes used in the EU and the US in 2019 for trips of 150–800 km. The data are segmented by percentage share of different transport modes utilized. The most significant disparities between the regions studied is that commercial air is less utilized in Europe (4.4%, compared with 7.3%), that travel by train is significantly more popular in Europe (12.3%, compared with 2.2%), and that private cars are significantly less popular in Europe (72.9%, compared with 86.9%).
Source: Eurostat; Flightradar24; OECD; National Travel Survey.
End of image description.
To read the article, see “Short-haul flying redefined: The promise of regional air mobility,” May 31, 2023.