Manchester Metropolitan flies off with £5M aviation initiative

Manchester Metropolitan University has recruited academic and industrial partners, including Cambridge University and Airbus, to a £5 million programme that will assess the problems confronting the global airline industry and help to develop solutions.

In another project to receive funding from the Higher Education Innovation Fund last week, the university’s Department of Environmental and Geographical Sciences will lead Project OMEGA, to assess the known and newly emerging environmental challenges that the air transport and aeronautical industries must overcome during the next 50 years.

OMEGA involves eight other universities in the UK (Cambridge, Oxford, Reading, Southampton, Sheffield, Leeds, Cranfield and Loughborough) and six in North America (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Florida International University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Pennsylvania State University, University of Central Florida and York University, Ontario).

Other partners include government departments and commercial organisations including Manchester Airport, British Airways, Rolls-Royce, Airbus and the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry.

OMEGA, (Opportunities for Meeting the Environmental Challenge of Growth in Aviation) will confront the issues faced by a European sector worth $200 billion per annum, and that underpins 6.7 million jobs.

“Over the last 30 years there has been a six-fold increase in air travel. The same period has seen a 60 per cent improvement in fuel efficiency, plus large reductions in aircraft noise,” said David Raper, director of the university’s Centre for Air Transport and the Environment.

These improvements have been delivered through aeronautical research focused on technological and operational improvements.

Continued rapid growth is forecast, with a tripling of demand over the next 30 to 40 years. “To fill this sustainability gap, we need new ways of thinking, and new business models, combining expertise and best practice with careful attention to industry needs,” said Raper.