A1.1 Scenarios for Air Transport System in Alternative 2050 Environments (ScenAIR2050)

How will the relationship between the demand for aviation services and e.g. ticket prices evolve into the future? How will external factors such as user’s ecological awareness, intermodality and emergence of new modes of transport affect this dynamic?

To answer these and other future-oriented questions, knowledge and data from different disciplines and stakeholders need to be collected and interpreted in a perspective-oriented way.

The project "Scenarios for Air Transport System in Alternative Futures (ScenAIR2050)" aims to provide a multi-criteria decision support for the assessment and optimisation of future technologies developed within SE²A. This is achieved by updating the scenario analysis compared to previous studies, but with greater consideration of socio-economic, cultural and lifestyle factors.

The objective of the project is to provide sources of identified qualitative trends as well as quantifiable data on external factors that the ICA teams can use in their simulation and optimisation processes. Embedded in the overall picture of European aviation, different futures for an energy-efficient air transport system will be explored and optimised. This provides the cluster partners with additional, often overlooked aspects and perspectives. Considering both qualitative and external factors in simulations and technical choices the future viability of innovative solutions is purported to be enhanced. 

As part of the research associated with ICA A, the project takes on the task and focuses on exploring customer-related trends and the interaction with 1) airlines, 2) airport management, 3) global and regional economies, 4) politics and legal regulations, and 5) ecological conditions of the future.

Since implementation of targeted innovations in the cluster for short, middle and long range aircrafts will likely impose surcharges to the ticket prices, it is of importance for SE²A research body to adjust their design-decisions with various paradigms of airline businesses and customers in perspective from 2030 onwards.

Thus, among other things, an in-depth investigation of micro-level scenarios on the relationship between ticket prices and aviation demand on the one hand and changes in mobility behaviour (compared to the status quo assuming that the intended cluster targets are met) in the PESTLE+ scenarios on the other hand will be conducted.

The project applies different methods of foresight and design research to map out possible futures for the air transport system (ATS) until 2050.

The team uses the classical foresight scenario technique as well as a multidisciplinary "Morphological Delphi" to systematically capture developments in the framework conditions of the air transport system and its futures. Across the cluster, partners are involved providing input based on their expertise, identifying further questions and evaluating scenarios.

The political, economic, social, technological, legal, environmental, values and lifestyles (PESTLE+) factors as well as their trajectories will be identified and reviewed. The key factors are plotted in the morphological analysis from which the first scenarios derive, e.g. best/trend/worst case scenarios for the ATS. A panel of experts will participate in iterative Delphi surveys and support the morphological analyses with the necessary inputs. 

The impact of such qualitative factors on the technical variables' predominantly quantitative parameters will then be taken into account in order to address the above-mentioned questions.

Scenair advocates interdisciplinarity and consensusis. It is a transdisciplinary research project and deals with future-relevant questions received from ICA teams. A whole work package (WP2) is dedicated to questions that ICA teams might have regarding the future of their respective research subjects. 

Many of these questions are complex and can not be treated by one single discipline. Therefore we encourage SE2A teams and single researchers to actively contribute as experts to Scenair's workshops and Delphi inquires.

With extrapolating current and future trends (WP1) and with the help of  consensus and inputs from expert surveys(WP3), we deliver prognoses and explorative scenarios (WP4&5). In this regard, three optimistic-case, pessimistic-case and trend-case is being introduced to represent alternative possible futures. The 3 reference aircrafts will each receive separate specialized set of scenarios.