Paris Air Show: Macron says France to plough cash into low-emission planes
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00:00 Let's cross now to Charles Pellegrin who's at Le Bourget.
00:03 Charles, French President Emmanuel Macron is opening the show this Monday after announcing
00:08 that more than 2 billion euros will be spent in order to help develop technologies for
00:13 sustainable aviation.
00:18 That's right, the French President making that announcement before the weekend when
00:22 visiting the Safran factory in France.
00:26 The Safran is a huge local champion of the aerospace industry.
00:31 He promised to pour in over the next few years over 8.5 billion euros in developing sustainable
00:40 aviation.
00:41 That means developing an ultra-energy efficient aircraft, a successor to Airbus' A320.
00:48 It also means pouring a lot of money into developing sustainable aviation fuel and making
00:54 France a leader of this kind of fuel and a major producer of this kind of fuel which
00:58 is basically made from agricultural waste or municipal waste or other waste, just not
01:04 from fossil fuels.
01:05 Currently, actually those fuels only represent 0.1% of all fuel consumption and the objective
01:11 in France and in Europe is for all flights departing Europe in 2030, among all those
01:17 flights to have 6% using this kind of fuel.
01:21 So that's one of the ways to try and reduce emissions in this industry and really all
01:26 these technologies and innovations and some of the recipients of this financial investments
01:32 from the French state are on show here at the Paris Air Show.
01:35 Behind me there's for example a French startup called Volt Aero.
01:39 They're producing a hybrid airplane with both a thermal engine as backup and an electric
01:44 engine as well and that thermal engine can use different kinds of fuels.
01:49 So there are definitely one of the words of the day here at the Paris Air Show.
01:54 Important to note as well that the airline industry represents about 3% of all global
02:00 emissions, a figure that's even higher if you look at a per capita basis.
02:05 And this has also been unveiled as the recovery air show as aviation bounces back following
02:11 the pandemic.
02:12 What can we expect from this year's event, Charles?
02:19 Well absolutely we're expecting the big aircraft manufacturers to demonstrate their latest
02:24 products, their latest developments, innovations and those are obviously Airbus and Boeing.
02:33 Airbus is the leader currently, Boeing its rival, its major rival in second place.
02:37 And looking at the figures from the International Air Travel Association really shows this rebound
02:43 in the airline industry.
02:46 In 2022 passenger air travel went up 64% compared to 2021 so quite a bounce after a lot of these
02:54 lockdowns and restrictions were lifted.
02:57 And 2023 is expected to break even more records especially with the full effect of China's
03:03 reopening having a huge impact there.
03:07 And this is reflected in the forecast of these major airline manufacturers, aircraft manufacturers.
03:12 Boeing is saying that it expects in 2042 to have a global fleet of about 48,000 aircraft.
03:19 That's double what we have today 24,000 and that's in line with what Airbus is saying
03:23 as well with 40,000, over 40,000 new planes built by 2042 for a total of over 46,000.
03:32 So what's driving this is the fact that global GDP growth is still going up, it's still increasing
03:37 and that means that more and more people are now in the middle class.
03:40 And we're expecting over the next two decades 500 million new potential air travelers.
03:46 Charles Pellegrin there at the Paris Air Show, thank you.