ZeroAvia, a firm that refers to itself as the leading innovator in decarbonizing commercial aviation, claims it has completed the world's first hydrogen fuel cell powered flight of a commercial-grade aircraft. The historic flight was undertaken Thursday at the company’s R&D facility in Cranfield, England.

“It’s hard to put into words what this means to our team, but also for everybody interested in zero-emission flight. While some experimental aircraft have flown using hydrogen fuel cells as a power source, the size of this commercially available aircraft shows that paying passengers could be boarding a truly zero-emission flight very soon," said in a statement Val Miftakhov, CEO, ZeroAvia.

The achievement saw a Piper M-class six-seat plane successfully perform taxi, takeoff, a full pattern circuit, and landing. The firm claims it is the first step to transitioning from polluting fossil fuels to zero-emission hydrogen as the primary energy source for commercial aviation.