ZeroAvia has completed the world’s first hydrogen fuel cell-powered flight of a commercial-grade aircraft.

The flight took place at the company’s R&D facility in Cranfield, England, with the Piper M-class six-seat plane completing taxi, takeoff, a full pattern circuit, and landing.

ZeroAvia’s achievement is the first step to realizing the transformational possibilities of moving from fossil fuels to zero-emission hydrogen as the primary energy source for commercial aviation.

Eventually, and with no new fundamental science required, hydrogen-powered aircraft will match the flight distances and payload of the current fossil fuel aircraft.

This major milestone on the road to commercial zero-emission flight is part of the HyFlyer project, a sequential R&D program supported by the UK Government and follows the UK’s first-ever commercial-scale battery-electric flight, conducted in the same aircraft in June.

ZeroAvia will turn its attention to the next and final stage of its six-seat development program – a 250-mile zero-emission flight out of an airfield in Orkney before the end of the year.

The demonstration of this range is roughly equivalent to busy major routes such as Los Angeles to San Francisco or London to Edinburgh.

Besides all the aircraft work, ZeroAvia and EMEC have developed the Hydrogen Airport Refuelling Ecosystem (HARE) at Cranfield Airport – a microcosm of what the hydrogen airport ecosystem will look like in terms of green hydrogen production, storage, refueling, and fuel cell powered-flight.

This also marks another world’s first – a fully operational hydrogen production and refueling airport facility for primary commercial aircraft propulsion.

The successful flight represents good news for the aviation industry’s role in supporting the net-zero transition, but also raises hopes for innovation that can reduce commercial challenges in the medium term, particularly important for the industry as it considers the post-pandemic recovery.