Qatar Airways completes it’s first flight with natural gas

News added by Victor Hunt under Airline News

It seems that the airline industry has just had a major breakthrough in terms of fuel technology. This news comes as Qatar Airways has made its first paying passenger flight that was powered by nothing but natural gas. This was a flight that left Gatwick and flew to Doha earlier this week. This move has been regarded as a very important step in the airline industry’s attempts to reduce its dependence on oil-based fuel.

Before the flight, Qatar took the time to contact every passenger that had booked a seat on this flight and notified them of the switch in fuel. They offered to place people on a alternative flight if they were worried at all about taking the flight using natural gas.

The fuel was developed by the company Shell and uses a 50-50 blend of synthetic gas to liquids (known as GTL) kerosene and conventional oil-based kerosene. However, Shell did note that neither them nor the members that developed the blend claimed that it’s better at reducing carbon emissions. They said that there may be some modest CO2 emissions benefits from using the new gas.

A member of the Aviation Environment Federation group, Jeff Gazzard, said that GTL is useful for local airports’ air quality, but it does have a higher carbon footprint than ordinary fuel. A spokesperson for the Civil Aviation Authority in the UK said that GTL is used by the military, but Qatar is the first to use it on a commercial flight that had passengers aboard. Either way, everyone seems to agree that this is a step in the right direction for the airline industry

Bookmark this article: