There will be no “green” airplane for a long time: Airbus failed to cope with the transition to hydrogen engines

21 April 21:58

European aircraft manufacturer Airbus has significantly scaled back its ambitious project to create a zero-emission passenger jet powered by hydrogen fuel and postponed its implementation by a decade. The company is forced to reconsider its “green” strategy due to technical difficulties and the slow adoption of hydrogen technologies in the global economy, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports, citing The Wall Street Journal.

Unjustified illusions

Five years ago, Airbus boldly promised to create a revolutionary zero-emission airplane by 2035. Since then, the company has spent more than $1.7 billion on the project, but recently cut its budget by 25% and redistributed its staff, sending engineers back to the drawing board.

Airbus presented the first concepts of hydrogen aircraft at the end of 2020. The most ambitious model was supposed to carry up to 200 passengers over a distance of up to 2,000 nautical miles – enough to fly from New York to Las Vegas. At the time, the company’s CEO Guillaume Faury called the project a “historic moment” and declared his intention to play a leading role in the most important transformation of the aviation industry.

However, the project was initially met with skepticism from airlines and suppliers. The technical challenges were much more serious than expected. In particular, the engines had to be completely redesigned to work with the new fuel, hydrogen had to be stored in liquid form at minus 423 degrees, and the problem of increased weight had to be addressed, which negatively affects passenger capacity and range.

An additional obstacle was the need to create a new supply chain to produce enough hydrogen, transport it, and store it safely at airports. From the very beginning, Airbus’ competitor Boeing expressed doubts about the feasibility of using hydrogen in aviation.

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However, Faury was adamant. According to him, the motivation for the project partly came from his experience in the automotive industry, which at one time failed to notice the electric car revolution. In addition, obligations to the French state, which provided Airbus with funding during the COVID-19 pandemic, required that part of the funds be spent on developing environmentally friendly aircraft by the 2030s.

Last year, it became clear that the initial concept of a 200-seat hydrogen-powered airplane had fundamental flaws. Burning hydrogen in a conventional jet engine still produces nitrogen oxides. Engine manufacturers also did not show much enthusiasm for the significant investment in the project.

The company switched to using hydrogen fuel cells, which produce energy for an electric motor through a chemical reaction. This approach produces only water vapor as a byproduct, but requires a radical redesign of the aircraft structure and propulsion system. In addition, the model had to be reduced to 100 passengers with a range of about 1000 nautical miles.

Moving closer to reality

In early February 2025, Airbus informed employees about the project’s budget cuts and postponement. And in March, Faury compared the hydrogen plane to the supersonic Concorde, which went down in aviation history but turned out to be too expensive to operate.

“We concluded that it would be wrong to be right too soon,”

– summarized the CEO.

Despite the postponement, Airbus claims that its ultimate goal has not changed, but only the timing and approach to implementation have been adjusted. Bruno Fischeffe, Head of Future Programs, said: