An Airbus trial in collaboration with Delta, Air France and Virgin Atlantic has opened the door to geese-inspired transatlantic flights after describing the experiment as “successful”.
On December 11, 2025, Airbus announced that the company had completed a new phase of trials for Airbus’ fello’fly project, which was established in 2019, to use migrating geese as a source of inspiration for flight innovation.
Between September and October 2025, eight flights over the North Atlantic Ocean were trialed where aircraft were paired in a formation to reduce fuel consumption.
“With this flying technique, the first aircraft creates an uplift that drives fuel efficiency for the following aircraft, called ‘wake energy retrieval’. Once operational, wake energy retrieval has the potential to make fuel savings of up to 5% on long-haul flights,” said a spokesperson for Airbus.
Under the SESAR Joint Undertaking GEESE project, Airbus and its partners aimed to show that the operational concept is feasible and a safe method to guide two aircraft to meet at a precise time and place.
Airbus and partners complete successful wake energy retrieval trialshttps://t.co/v3p809u61I pic.twitter.com/dJdyDQ6Ek0
— Airbus Newsroom (@AirbusPRESS) December 11, 2025
Once the rendezvous was complete, the trial aimed to show it was possible to maintain full vertical separation and remain compliant with air traffic regulations.
“While the actual wake energy retrieval flights have not been tested yet on commercial flights, the successful completion of the rendezvous process is a crucial first step toward future efficiency gains,” added the spokesperson.
Each trial required close coordination between the two airlines’ ground operational control centers, four air traffic control centers, and two flight crews.
AirNav Ireland, DSNA, EUROCONTROL Network Manager, French bee and NATS also collaborated on the project.
Airbus said that the EUROCONTROL Innovation hub interface was “key to proving the concept’s safety and practicality in real-world conditions”.
The latest completed trials successfully validated a four-step process designed to manage the high-precision maneuvers required.
- This process begins when the Airbus Pairing Assistance Tool (PAT) computes the new aircraft trajectories and shared rendezvous instructions in real-time.
- Next, the airlines’ dispatcher, flight crew, and Air Traffic Control (ATC) assess the new trajectories to ensure operational acceptability. The EUROCONTROL Innovation Hub interface allows all stakeholders to have visibility of the decision status at any given moment.
- The third step involves one of the participating flights changing its planned route to join the other.
- Finally, both flight crews activate a cockpit function, committing the aircraft to arrive at the meeting point at an exact, predetermined time.
