easyJet has become the first airline in the world to trial a new lower-weight paint, which should cut emissions and enable fuel savings.
On January 3, 2025, easyJet announced that it is working with Mankiewicz Aviation Coatings to create the new solution. Compared to previous systems, this will use less paint to create the colors for easyJet’s livery.
“easyJet is constantly exploring and developing innovative solutions to lower the impact of our operations,” said Lahiru Ranasinghe, Director of Sustainability at easyJet. “While this forms a small part of a bigger strategy, formulating a new lightweight paint with our partners at Mankiewicz Aviation Coatings exemplifies how we’re assessing every single part of our operation to find efficiency gains to help us achieve this mission.”
easyJet predicts that the new lightweight paint system will save up to 1,296 tons of fuel per year and reduce CO2 emissions by 4,095 tons, once it is fully implemented across the fleet by the end of 2029.
According to the press release, the lighter paint coat reduces the weight of each aircraft by about 27 kilograms. Complemented with other fuel reduction methods and applied to entire fleets, this could provide another method of reducing carbon emissions for the aviation sector.
easyJet will test the new paint solution with MAAS Aviation, an MRO specialist based in Dublin, by painting the aircraft at its facility in Maastricht.
Currently, the new paint has been used on 38 easyJet aircraft. Over time, the airline plans to apply this solution to its entire fleet and expects to complete the full transition by 2030. The 38 easyJet planes that have been coated with the new paint are “already delivering fuel savings thanks to their lighter weight”, the carrier claims.
easyJet said that it continues “to work hard to find solutions that will help decarbonize the aviation sector”. The airline has recently finished installing its new tech software,
called Descent Profile Optimization (DPO), across its fleet. This has led to another record reduction in carbon intensity performance in FY24.
