ZeroAvia is to partner with Birmingham Airport in the UK to make flying up to 1,000 nautical miles emission free meaning net-zero journeys to Mediterranean holiday destinations could be a reality by 2027.

ZeroAvia is currently working on bringing to market a zero-emission system capable of flying 20-seat aircraft 300 nautical miles by 2025. In January, ZeroAvia successfully test-flew an aircraft equipped with hydrogen-electric engines that used hydrogen in fuel cells to generate electricity to turn the aircraft’s propellers.

This opens up the possibility of green air travel from Birmingham to destinations like Glasgow, Aberdeen, Belfast and Dublin by the middle of this decade.

For BHX, the partnership with ZeroAvia forms an important part of its journey to become a net-zero-carbon airport by 2033, as outlined in its ‘carbon roadmap’, published in 2022.

The airport plans to use an area near to its disused Elmdon terminal building as a potential location for hydrogen refuelling infrastructure, testing and operations.

Arnab Chatterjee, VP Infrastructure, ZeroAvia, said: “Birmingham Airport can be a central spoke in a green flight network in the UK, given that any domestic mainland destination will be reachable from the airport using our first systems in 2025. Given the commitments of the Jet Zero Strategy on domestic aviation, it is fantastic to engage with forward-thinking airports that want to be early innovators and developers to deliver the vision of bringing truly clean, quiet and pollution free flights to the UK.”

Simon Richards, chief finance & sustainability officer, Birmingham Airport, said: “We are thrilled to partner with ZeroAvia on creating solutions to the main challenge of our generation – protecting the future of our planet. We could, quite conceivably, see the first hydrogen-powered domestic passenger flight taking off from BHX in the UK in a few years. That’s mind-blowing.”