Air Canada
Assembly Line
Air Canada Tests Jet De-Icing Strips to End Blasts of Glycol
Air Canada is now exploring a novel concept to thaw its aircraft — one that does away with the hundreds of gallons of glycol and crew that spray it onto waiting jets. Instead, the airline will use heated tape strips to get the plane takeoff ready with just the flip of a switch.
Canada’s flagship carrier is the first airline to fit hundreds of adhesive ice-melting strips to the upper fuselage, wings and tail of an Airbus SE A320 aircraft, with the rest of the fleet following next year. Electrons on the plane’s surface begin to shake when animated by a high-frequency current, which travels from an electric box inside the aircraft through to the strips. The movement generates heat, causing the ice to melt.
The concept was developed by a Boston startup aptly called De-Ice. Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Alexander Bratianu-Badea, a trained chemical engineer with a finance degree from MIT, said he was inspired to explore the technology a few years back while suffering a lengthy delay when his plane sat on the tarmac waiting for its glycol shower.