- [Sam] 787 Greenliner.
- Welcome to our sustainable flight today.
- First off, this here is Shirafa
- Hi.
(dramatic upbeat music)
- Very lightweight.
- And, our sustainable plate made of bamboos
- It's 100% recycled.
So this here, is our butterfly cup.
- Made from recycled curtains.
- So, lot of this stuff are actually invisible.
- [Pilot] This is our route to avoid contrails.
- [Sam] How many tonnes of CO2 emission
you think we saved due to all the initiatives today?
(upbeat lo-fi music)
Today, I'm travelling on a special Etihad 787 Green Liner.
- Welcome to our sustainable flight today.
(upbeat lo-fi music)
I'm a little sceptical about the sustainable flight,
because there are a lot of talks in marketing,
but very little things has been done.
- Perhaps, Sam, you will feel more than you will see.
You'll obviously see eco-friendly products,
less single use plastic on board
and more waste segregation.
So, this is something you'll definitely see,
but what you will experience is a flight
that has 70% less emissions than a conventional one.
And, that's owing to the SAF use,
the Sustainable Aviation Fuel blend,
38% that is used on this flight
as well as the operational efficiencies that we're demoing.
- My name is Vimo.
Today with me, we have a First Officer, Sharifa.
- Hi.
- And, today we are flying the sustainable flight,
Etihad, DY 20 London to Abu Dhabi.
We will start from an optimised climb
so, we will be voided any restrictions during our climb
so it will be a continuous climb to cruise level.
The flight time is going to be six hours
and 10 minutes at 39,000 feet.
We have coordinated with all the control areas
that we are over flying towards Abu Dhabi,
a lot of optimised routes.
So, we're going to get a lot of direct routing,
will short our distance
and will let us emit less CO2.
Also, we're going to have a continued descent
coordinated with Abu Dhabi
with an obnob STAR and on our approach,
we will guarantee us a continuous descent
up to the landing using the minimum fuel as possible.
- I heard you got your PPA licence?
- [Sam] I did.
- Congrats.
- [Sam] And I recently flew again.
I flew a couple of days ago in LA.
- Wow.
- [Sam] And I just want to know,
so you started with maybe how the Etihad Academy,
is that how you started?
- Yes.
I started with Ethihad Training Academy, 12 years ago
and I flew the 320, Triple-7
and now, I'm flying 787 and Triple-7.
- Here is our plant-based water made
from composite plastic and it's eco-friendly.
- [Sam] Can I see?
- [Pilot] Attention, welcome.
- [Sam] It's interesting, she hand me a bottle of water.
I thought it was plastic
but she said that was made by plants.
You know it feels much harder than the plastic
but in my opinion, they should just give you a water bottle.
It's still a water bottle.
(upbeat lo-fi music)
I think what's funny about this aeroplane
is the colour, it changes.
When it arrived, when it's bad weather, moonlight,
it looks more blue.
- [Pilot] Okay, just turning right. (unintelligible)
Now, prepare to take off.
(aeroplane motor)
(aeroplane take-off)
(upbeat music)
- We're still climbing now straight, already 10,000 feet.
So took off and continue climbing.
This is what the captain said, is a continuous climb now,
to have the most efficient time-saving flight.
- This is our (unintelligible) Service that comes
in our sustainable plate made of bamboos.
You have here a (unintelligible) roll,
the spiced sweet potato tart
and the chicken satay mocha.
- Okay
- Enjoy.
- Seriously, I got really tired because I flew
from LA to New York and I flew that Jet Blue flight
and lucked in to join on this flight.
So it's almost like a matter of fault,
but what I see the engine, it always gives me some
great energy when I see them flying.
- Thank you.
- Hi Sam, how's it going?
Just today changed our main meal service in economy today.
We just want to really stress our tray
normally do contain a lot of plastic,
but today we have an absent zero plastic on our trays.
We have our veritable recycles containers,
which can be reused.
We also have our lightweight stainless steel cutlery.
- Very lightweight.
They like tiny weights and actually
it's quite sharp as well.
So this is pretty good, like it gives the people
I use the naturally a real cutlery instead of plastic.
- And last but not least don't forget about the tray.
It's 100% recycled.
So this here is our butterfly cup.
It's completely biodegradable and
made from recycled material.
- [Sam] What do you have inside, popcorn?
- Inside, we were using for the hot beverages on board
today, so our team coffee.
(upbeat music)
- And I passed out, I was so tired after took off,
you know, I reclined my seats.
It was comfortable and I just passed out.
I just woke up now and they're already finished dinner.
So I'm going to have my meal first.
Then I'm going to discover more.
(upbeat music)
So I came on board.
I was looking for more sustainability stuff, right.
But I just realised a lot of the stuff are actually
invisible because the SAP fuel
in the fuel tank I can't see it.
The waste stuff turning to recyclable material.
I can't see the process of production.
But in my opinion, I want to see more sustainable flight.
This is a great pilot project from airline
the Middle East to take that lead.
Not only one time, I want to see it every month, every week,
every day we could, we could do something like this.
That would be amazing.
- My name is Haron Genetti and
my son here is Drafon Ganetti.
- [Sam] Then you can see what he's playing. 7-8-7 model.
Is that your favourite?
- Yes, my very favourite aircraft.
- [Sam] How do you think about a sustainable flight?
- I'm really pleased with the experience.
I witnessed a lot of good things like sustainable
biodegradable bottles, sustainable cups,
organically and sustainable source of food.
And then there was the lightweight metal cutlery.
So which I've never seen before.
All in all, it all adds up to save tonnes and tonnes of CO2,
which was the main role of this flight experience.
- Sam, do you realise where this bag came from?
- [Sam] It really looked familiar.
I know the old Etihad pattern
but I couldn't figure out where they came from.
- This bag in fact is made from recycled curtains.
- Oh.
- From our old aircraft.
- The curtains.
- And would you look at this, this beautiful tote bag?
Every single one of the guests on our flight today
gets to take from one of these with them.
It's completely reusable.
- Okay.
- I would definitely take home now.
It's a piece of collectible as well, the curtain.
- [Pilot] 100,
50, 40,
30, 20,
10
- Welcome back to Abu Dhabi, my hometown.
We had a beautiful flight trying to save the planet,
saving fuel, less CO2 emissions today,
maybe less than any of my flights
I've done in the last 12 years.
So proud to be part of this team.
- [Sam] How did the ATC help you out with this flight?
How much time do you think we saved?
- So basically in London,
what they did is they remove the restriction
of 6,000 feet on the SID.
So as you know, this, we were only level for
6,000 feet for about two minutes.
Then we were taken off the SID by radar heading,
and we were given a straight climb for level 3-7-7.
So this will save us a little fuel
and about three, four minutes in times.
- [Sam] And what about the continued descent?
I think we did really well, right?
- Yes.
The continued descent that we got the restriction
removed between Bahrain and Fayar and UAE and Fayar.
So we had an optimal top descent.
We were assigned an obnob STAR and an AR approach or
run at one three, right in Abu Dhabi, which was the closest,
was the closest one for us.
So we got a very nice and short approach
on continuous descent.
During taxi, we shut down the left engine.
We arrived here at the gate.
We didn't start the (unintelligible)
The ground power unit was connected.
And when we shut down the, the other engine.
So we also save some fluid
by not starting the (unintelligible)
Another technology we are trialling on this flight,
which I didn't tell you the beginning
is we had a partnership with Satavia.
Satavia is a company that provides forecast
to avoid contrails during the flight.
So today we were avoiding contrails.
They came up with us with this profile, if you can see,
This is our route and the area marked in green are low,
a low area where low probability of contrails are.
And then you have the yellow and the red.
So our route was crossing the red around
the border between Hungary and Romania.
And what we did, basically, we climb above this red area
to avoid making contrails.
Contrails, the study says, a lot of contrails,
they make impossible for the heat to escape.
So avoiding contrails, we'll make sure that our planet
doesn't warm up as fast as it's doing now.
- [Sam] So the final question is how many tonnes of
CO2 emission you think we saved
due to all the initiative today?
- So, due to all the initiative we have today in our flight,
I can say that we saved around seven tonnes of CO2,
which was not emitted in the air today.
- Thanks for having me. It's a great flight today
and hope we do more sustainable flying in the future.
- Thank you, Sam, for being with us.
- See you soon. Bye.