Etihad joins the NFT wave
More and more airlines are starting to dabble in the blockchain world. airBaltic was an early adopter of this technology and on this pages we also covered how Spanish airline Air Europa linked the NFTs to plane tickets
(Check for example this conversation on the podcast with TravelX founder (the company that designed this project for Air Europe) in which he shares some details about how all this works).
Now, another prominent airline joins the fray.
Etihad has announced the minting of its first NFT, which will be called EY-ZERO1.
In this case, 2003 NFTs will be minted (symbolising the year Etihad was established) and the related work of “art” will be a series is made of 10 3D Boeing 787 models, each with a different livery (of the several ones that Etihad aircraft have been sporting in recent times, including special ones such as the Manchester City and Greenliner ones).
Starting sale price will be $349 and bidding will go on until 18th August on this website and also through the Etihad Guest Reward Shop, which will accept frequent flyer miles as bids too.
What’s in it for the acquirers?
Etihad has devised a number of incentives to stimulate bidding on these NFTs, for example, those that purchase the NFT will get Etihad Guest Silver immediately and for one year, 10 lucky acquirers will also get complimentary tickets and 20 of those would-be bidders that pre-register on this dedicated micro-site before up until 16th July will have a chance to actually get the NFT for free as a gift.
Environmental aspects
But how you reconcile this with claiming to have a leadership position in the path towards fully sustainable flight?
As you are possibly aware of, blockchain applications such as crypto and NFTs have been criticized for consuming lots of energy for goals what seem, at least in most cases, to be entirely gratuitous ends.
This angle hasn’t escaped Etihad’s managers, who took good care to highlight EY-ZERO1 NFT collection environmental credentials, mentioning they will be minted on the Polygon blockchain, which is an Ethereum-based technology that boasts about being more energy efficient than others in this space.
Etihad has also partnered with Aerial.is, a service that allows companies and individuals track their carbon footprint, in order to provide an independent and transparent assessment of the environmental impact of the NFT minting.
On top of that, Etihad promises to offset the entire amount of CO2 emissions generated by this project and has pledged the proceeds are going to be allocated to sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) purchases.
And, just as airBaltic did with its Planies NFT series, Etihad has also set up a dedicated Twitter account to follow news related to the EY-ZERO1 project.
NFTs and airlines: the jury is still out
Still quite a few question marks about whether this whole NFT craze will take hold or not, but, one way or another, it is hard for airlines to ignore macro-trends, just in case!
It will be interesting to see how this goes, I guess that many airlines are keeping an eye on this and have tasked their tech and marketing teams to outline plans in this space.