Within the scope of the Bauhaus Luftfahrt Trend Monitor, manifold social, technology-driven, economic, environmental, and political developments are monitored, analysed, and evaluated. Activities aim to depict trends early on, raise awareness, and provide a first assessment for deepening our understanding, as well as to derive possible impacts, market potentials, and research needs. The Trend Monitor relies on a toolbox of future-oriented methods, scenario thinking, and data analytics. The trend database is updated regularly with inputs from various sources. Internal and external experts then assess the shortlisted trends.
Whereas in 2021 the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts were dominating the trend discussions, the tech industry was a main driver of change in 2022: Trends such as the Metaverse and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) emerged on the horizon. The long-term impacts on the future of aviation are still open and require more research. On the other hand, hyper-connectivity, the Internet of Things (IoT), and new work, especially remote working, are already observable today, showing that our daily lives shift increasingly into digital spaces. The question remains how the aviation industry will react towards these dynamic developments and how to make use of these trends while at the same time focusing on decarbonisation and other urgent sustainability goals. It is already clear that passengers and their acceptance of technical and operational solutions will play a key role for this mission. Hence, dedicated studies were conducted within the Trend Monitor last year, and details on air passengers and their possible role in the transition towards more sustainable air travel can be found in the Bauhaus Luftfahrt Trend Report 2022.
