Will large airships take advantage of the slow decarbonization of the aviation sector to make their comeback in the air? This is the bet of the French company Euro Airship. On the occasion of the Vivatech show, the Pau manufacturer set itself an extraordinary challenge: to circumnavigate the world without stopovers or CO2 emissions, using a 100% electric rigid airship. This 20-day epic, scheduled for 2026, will serve as a prelude to the production of a series of devices for transporting heavy loads or supporting the development of sustainable tourism.
Sponsor of the initiative, the adventurer Bertrand Piccard, will board the first 150m long prototype alongside Dorine Bourneton, paraplegic aerobatic pilot, and Michel Tognini, former astronaut. At an altitude of 6000m, the three friends will fly over around 25 countries at the equator. They will fly by day with solar power and at night with fuel cells. They will thus cover 40,000 km without stopping or impacting the environment. Never seen.
“I see in this initiative a symbolic epic, a means of transmitting positive messages to schools, universities, governments, on all the solutions that exist to protect the environment” confides the president of the Solar Impulse foundation to L’Express . Marie-Christine Bilbow, director of Euro Airship, is more down to earth by evoking the industrial continuation of the project. “Our objective is to prove that we are bringing a new low-carbon technology. The global airship market over the next 20 years is estimated at 40 billion dollars”, she slips. It must be said that this means of transport combines the advantages: no CO2 emissions, a compartment that can be modified according to needs, a vertical take-off and landing that does not require any particular support. The device can land on sand, snow, on the roof of a building or even on water thanks to floats. It may also not land at all and unload its contents using winches.
Compete with the plane
In terms of energy, the airship demonstrates exemplary sobriety. Its engines are mainly used to go against the wind or to perform logistics maneuvers. For safety reasons, the device incorporates a system capable of anticipating weather conditions. It also has an innovative control in which the commands produce their effect almost instantaneously. “Certainly its average speed remains between 130 and 169 km / h. But it is enough to compete with the plane if we take into account the entire supply chain”, estimates Marie Christine Bilbow. In a typical delivery route, the contents of a truck are first transferred to an airplane before being transported again by road to the final destination. “In addition to the time taken by all these stages, we arrive at the same speed as an airship”, explains the entrepreneur.
But before transporting goods, serving for civil or military surveillance, humanitarian missions, supplying landlocked areas, or even extinguishing forest fires, Euro Airship’s airships will accompany tourists in the sky. “We are targeting this market as a priority. We are planning a model capable of carrying up to 50 people, i.e. 10 tonnes of payload. A sort of river boat carried by the winds with a lot of space inside over almost 360 degrees”, explains Marie-Christine Bilbow.
Euro Airship has already received several letters of intent from customers. One of them, based in China, would even already have a reception platform for its future airships. Once launched on the eco-responsible tourism market, the French company will tackle the construction of two larger models cut for logistics. One can carry 50 tons of payload and the other 400 tons. The latter will be 345m long, roughly the size of the airships of the interwar period. With such a giant in the air, Euro Airship hopes to make investors dream.