Delta Airlines Pushes Towards Net Zero Emissions With Sustainable Skies Lab

Delta Airlines has been flexing its financial muscles, putting $10 billion into expanding and modernizing its terminals and lounges in Los Angeles and New York. Barrons even picked Delta (DAL) as the best bet among airline stocks for 2023 and 2024. The airline chose the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to showcase another initiative, the Delta Sustainable Skies Lab.

In 2020, Delta pledged to spend a billion dollars on sustainability efforts, including the Sustainable Skies Lab. Delta calls it a first-of-its-kind innovation lab to accelerate research, design, and testing towards more sustainable air travel.

A major theme at CES this year was sustainability, as major electronics companies like Panasonic shared plans and progress in creating more sustainable business models. Sustainability is a critical issue in aviation as well. Air travel creates more than 2% of human-induced carbon poured into our atmosphere, as well as 12% of CO2 from all transportation sources.

Not a physical laboratory building, at least not yet, the Delta lab is aimed at inspiring industry innovation and scaling technology solutions. The focus: Delta’s goal of net zero emissions by 2050.

Achieving sustainability in the airline industry is a tall order, even if setting a target 27 years away. While millions of electric vehicles are on the roads, most observers feel it will be 2030 or later before electric, hydrogen or other “clean” technologies can provide the energy density needed to propel massive aircraft.

Nonetheless, “Aviation is essential,” says Pam Fletcher, Delta’s Chief Sustainability Officer.

Fletcher, who has an engineering background, came to Delta from General Motors, where she was Vice President of Global Innovation. She was previously Vice President of Electric Vehicles at GM, leading teams responsible for developing electric and autonomous vehicles.

“I had a front row seat in the electrification of the auto industry,” she says. In aviation “manufacturers, the operators, government, policy makers—everyone has got to come to the table. With aviation being a hard-to-decarbonize industry, none of us can do this alone,” Fletcher added.

Fletcher says that Delta’s Lab will lead the industry by going beyond financial investments, contributing Delta talent and know-how. Everything from how Delta is eliminating single use plastics onboard to electrifying its ground equipment is under the microscope. Delta also plans to partner with “disruptors,” (the technology innovative kind, not anti-aviation activists) who will join sustainability partners such as Airbus and Joby Aviation, and research collaborators like MIT.

“Delta Sustainable Skies Lab is about pairing the operational expertise of our teams with innovators to inspire new ideas and spur industry advancement,” Fletcher said. “It’s a place to showcase advancements and a movement to galvanize everyone with a stake in creating the sustainable future of flight.”

Fletcher is leading Delta’s sustainability push in collaboration with internal leaders from the company’s Technical Operations, Flight Operations, Fleet, Fuel, Operations & Customer Center, Inflight Service and Airport Customer Service group. The work of the lab takes place across various Delta shared spaces, mostly on campus in Atlanta.

Delta is also creating an Engagement and Ideation Studio, to be built at the airline’s Atlanta headquarters. The idea is to showcase Delta’s sustainability efforts in a single place. Interactive digital walls, virtual reality stations, experiential mock-ups and other display technologies will hopefully spark ideas for a sustainable aviation future. Delta says the space will also welcome stakeholders to meet, collaborate, and share ideas. One upcoming test that will be highlighted is Aero Design Labs’ technology to decrease aircraft drag and emissions.

“The lab and Engagement Studio will bring the work already being done forward to inspire,” says Fletcher. “Ideas come from everywhere—often from internal people and also external to work as partners, to accelerate.”

One such success is Delta saving 10 million gallons of fuel this year from operational efficiencies. As Fletcher points out, this doesn’t include the impact of fleet modernization to more efficient aircraft, which occurred with Delta as with many airlines during the pandemic. One aircraft Delta dropped during the pandemic was the Boeing 777, one of which was involved in a notorious fuel-dumping incident over a Los Angeles school in 2020.

The Sustainability lab is focused on finding and sharing long-term technology solution that will bring Delta to “net zero by 2050.” But Fletcher believes that cleaner-burning Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) presents an opportunity to cut carbon now.

Many airlines and even the Air Force have successfully flown aircraft with biofuel-based SAF replacing jet fuel. SAF is becoming more widely used, but as of 2022, global SAF production was just 26.4 million gallons, or about 0.1% of all aviation fuel. Meanwhile, the International Air Transport Association (IATA), estimates SAF costs two to four times as much as conventional aviation fuel. Other sources say the multiple is even higher.

“The reality is that it is the best solution that exists today. By 2035 we will need to reduce our carbon intensity by 45%,” Fletcher says. “Delta made a commitment to have 10% of our fuel be SAF by 2030. We need to come together as an industry and drive the capitalization and scaling of SAF. We are working with multiple processes, multiple feedstocks, and multiple startups.”

Will climate activists who shut down Berlin Airport in November, and staged similar actions at Heathrow and private jet facilities around the world, wait for such incremental changes?

“Our philosophy is ‘Progress now,’ like our investment to modernize our fleet, and continual emphasis on improving operations,” Fletcher responded. “Delta is definitely not standing still.”

“We believe in embedding sustainability in everything we do with a goal to eliminate our impact on the climate from flying. It guides every decision we make,” Fletcher added. “We want to make sure our customers will feel as good about flying as they do about the connections made with the people and places we take them to.”