Sustainability and Environment
Airbus Signs Partners for Fello’fly Environmental Project
SAS, Frenchbee and three ANSPs agree to participate in Airbus’s latest project aimed at reducing fuel burn.

Airbus has signed agreements with two airline customers and three air navigation service providers to demonstrate the operational feasibility of its “fello’fly” demonstrator project for reducing aviation emissions, the company said Wednesday. Inspired by biomimicry, fello’fly will employ a phenomenon called Wake Energy Retrieval (WER). WER replicates the behavior of birds, which fly together to reduce their energy consumption. The technique of a follower aircraft retrieving energy lost by a leader by flying in the smooth updraft of air the wake creates could reduce fuel consumption by between 5 and 10 percent per trip, Airbus reckons.