Completed Projects

The Institute of Air Transport has been actively involved in innovative research projects that have a significant impact on the development of air transportation. For example, in the projects ÖKONVER and ÖKONVER-2, methods were developed to economically evaluate advanced technologies and measures, such as environmentally friendly ones, in the European transportation sector. Projects like EXACT and its successor EXACT 2 explore propulsion concepts for lower-emission short-haul aircraft.

You can find more details and the results of these projects here!

Fundamental Research for the Urban Air Mobility of Tomorrow

i-LUM

The i-LUM project – Innovative Airborne Urban Mobility – explores the feasibility of new concepts for urban air transport using the model of the Hamburg metropolitan region.

EXACT

The "EXACT" (Exploration of Electric Aircraft Concepts and Technologies) project, led by the Institute for System Architectures in Aviation, is investigating propulsion concepts for short-haul aircraft with significantly reduced emissions and less noise, considering batteries, fuel cells and hydrogen. The effects on the entire ecological and aviation system, i.e. on airports, airlines, air traffic control and the atmosphere are examined.

ÖKONVER

The aim of the ÖKONVER project is to bundle the economic competencies within the DLR and to complement or expand them in a targeted manner. In this way, the economic competence available in many places at DLR is to be further developed and made available to the institutes and projects in the transport sector on a broad basis.

ÖKONVER-2

The DLR project ÖKONVER-2 (Economically sound evaluation of new technologies and measures in the European transport system II) is developing and applying methods for the economic evaluation of innovative climate-friendly and smart technologies, measures and projects in the transport sector. This includes innovative business models as well as the political regulation of system goods in the transport sector.

HorizonUAM

Within the framework of the DLR-internal research project Horizon UAM, the influence of socio-economic, spatial-structural and technological factors on the market development of different use cases in the field of Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is investigated with the help of a system-analytical approach. Taking into account different development scenarios, statements about the potential UAM demand (number of trips) as well as the resulting aircraft movements and number of aircraft are derived.

ClimOP

The project "CLIMOP" (Climate assessment of innovative mitigation strategies towards operational improvements in aviation), coordinated by Deep Blue and supported by the DLR Institutes of Air Transport and of Atmospheric Physics, , investigates different operational measures to reduce the climate impact of aviation considering both CO2 and non-CO2 effects. Based on a comparative assessment of different operational improvements on ground and in-flight, harmonized mitigation strategies will be developed and recommendations for regulations and policies will be derived.

Study to evaluate the Aviation Road Map 2020 and develop a new Aviation Strategy 2030+ for Austria

On behalf of the Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology (BMK), the Institute of Airports and Air Transport (now the Institute of Air Transport) prepared a baseline study for the development of a new national aviation strategy and finalised it in 2022. The focus was on sustainability, competitiveness and connectivity, intermodality and digitalisation as well as technical change.

EU ETS

A joint study by CE Delft and DLR commissioned by the European Parliament (TRAN Committee) discusses the challenges and impacts resulting from the integration of the maritime sector in the EU ETS, and from a more stringent EU ETS for aviation, as proposed by the European Commission in its Fit for 55 package. The study considers implementation challenges, consequences for the competitiveness of European stakeholders, e.g. caused by carbon leakage, and impacts on sectoral employment.

Update on the economic impact data of Business Aviation in Europe

DLR has assessed the economic impact of the European business aviation sector in terms of employment, output, salaries and gross value added, in the areas of operators, fixed-base operations, manufacturing, maintenance, repair and overhaul, counting more than 400,000 employees. Our analyses were conducted and updated in 2015, 2017, and 2021-2022.