Sustainability – it is time for airlines and the industry to update its thinking?

Sustainability represents the biggest long-term external challenge for the aviation industry. The airline industry has set itself lofty targets, culminating in an ambition to achieve 'net zero' carbon emissions by 2050. At the moment however, the industry appears to be failing to achieve interim environmental targets around sustainable aviation fuel use, operational efficiency and reducing its emissions. With frustrating building over shortages of new aircraft and SAF, a lack of infrastructure-side efficiency enhancements and difficulties in disparate political approaches, a few airlines have now very publicly announced they will not be able to meet sustainability targets they have committed to. Are we at a tipping point in aviation's sustainability challenge, or is it time for the industry to reconvene and reset its thinking around interim targets and the costs of how to get there?

• How does the industry come together to make the system as efficient as it can be? Are there 'easy wins' that the sector can turn to?

• The cost of sustainability is a much talked about topic. What sort of price premium can the industry adapt to in order to pay for sustainability, without reducing demand for flying?

• Are short-term national and regional targets, like those set by the UK and the EU, potentially counterproductive for the industry? Are regulatory approaches like SAF mandates and bans on short haul flying actually going to achieve anything?

• While the industry is desperate for more SAF, more aircraft and straighter flight paths, progress in these areas often fails to meet airline demands. How does the aviation sector communicate that while sustainability presents an enormous challenge, it also presents an enormous opportunity?