The aviation industry, and with it Hamburg as a global aviation centre, faces the greatest challenge of its history: to pursue the path to becoming a low emissions industry. The Green Aviation Technological Roadmap, produced in collaboration with the industry’s actors in Hamburg, indicates areas in which Hamburg can position itself over the long term, making its own contribution. In addition to the Green Aviation Roadmap, the Hamburg Aviation Green initiative encompasses every aspect of the low emissions future of aviation. It is also closely associated with the Hamburg stimulus package in task force areas such as hydrogen and with European support initiatives such as Clean Aviation.

Within the Medifly project, a Hamburg-based business, research and administration team is addressing the question of how uncrewed aircraft can be deployed to transport medical items, in close cooperation with the responsible authorities, airspace users, and the people of Hamburg. After successful test flights over Hamburg in February 2020, Medifly is now in the starting blocks, ready to fly new routes within Hamburg as the basis for future regular operations. Project partners are the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Innovation, FlyNex, GLVI Gesellschaft fuer Luftverkehrsinformatik, Hamburg Aviation, the Hamburg Logistics Initiative, Lufthansa Technik, and the ZAL Center for Applied Aeronautical Research, Associated partners include the Asklepios hospitals, the Federal Armed Forces Hospital, German Air Traffic Services, Intermed, Schoen Clinic Hamburg, and the University Hospital Eppendorf.

QBlue is an innovative qualification concept that will start in 2021. In the project, professional training opportunities for skilled workers (all genders) in small and medium-sized aviation companies in the metropolitan region are developed and tailored to their needs and work realities using modern IT processes.

ZAL’s task as a leading research facility for civilian aviation is to already identify and explore today the future needs of our research partners. For this reason, the ZAL TechCenter is being extended. The spaces being created now have been designed to function according to modern “new work concepts”. An Innovation Accelerator will be another new feature. This offers methodical project support in the form, for example, of technological early recognition or agile coaching. The service is complemented by technological support such as feasibility studies and prototype development.

The Sustainable Aero Lab is an innovative, internationally oriented mentoring programme for startups in the field of aeronautical technologies. It has set as its mission to become the most visible address worldwide for knowledge transfer and open innovation in the field of sustainable aviation. The lab draws together people from diverse backgrounds with a shared vision — the dream of making emission-free aviation a reality. The Sustainable Aero Lab is supported by the Hamburg Investitions und Foerderbank (IFB) and is a subsidiary of Hamburg investment corporation Density Ventures. As associated partners, Hamburg Aviation and ZAL are substantial stakeholders in the concept.

The Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg is offering a total of 25 million euros of support for research and innovation in the city’s aviation industry between now and 2022. Topics and projects are bundled in the Task Force Aviation, coordinated by Hamburg Aviation. In various topical working groups, well-defined projects are being developed and implemented to enable Hamburg’s aviation industry to respond to the economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic and at the same time to equip itself for the concerns of the future. The working groups are made up of Hamburg Aviation members from industry, research and education. There are working groups for hydrogen, urban air mobility, qualification, aircraft cabins, and digitalisation of the supply chain.