29.06.2026
The discussions at this year's Royal Aeronautical Society Sustainability Summit reflected a sector moving slowly from ambition towards implementation. Below is a round-up of what we heard…
What became clear throughout the summit is that aviation’s challenge is no longer identifying solutions. It is scaling them.
Scaling remains aviation’s biggest challenge
Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAFs) remain a key talking point at sustainability events because they can be integrated into existing fleets and infrastructure; however, meeting long-term demand will require significant increases in production capacity and that means sustained investment across the value chain. Currently, SAF represents less than 1% of global aviation fuel use and is significantly more expensive than conventional aviation fuel. For it to have a meaningful impact on aviation emissions, IATA estimates global SAF production must increase by more than 250 times by 2050. The debate is no longer whether SAFs work, but whether they can scale fast enough to meet ambitions.
The challenge extends far beyond fuels. At the event, most of the discussion was about SAF, some on space sustainability, with fewer discussions on new aircraft and the conditions required for their deployment. New technologies need more than successful demonstrations; they require regulatory certainty, investment confidence, infrastructure planning, and environments where they can operate and prove their value. Taking these factors into consideration extends deployment timelines, with next-generation aircraft likely to start having operational impact into the mid-2030s and beyond.
Innovation requires more than invention
As highlighted by several panellists across the event, innovation is not invention. Creating a technology is only the first step; the real challenge is creating the conditions that allow it to reach the market and scale. Airlander is living this journey, with the technology already prototyped, regulatory conditions defined, infrastructure needs limited and progressive, and initial deployments serving particular geographical areas such as northern Scotland.
Creating the conditions for deployment
It was also highlighted that for the UK, this presents both opportunity and risk. The UK remains one of the world’s leading aerospace innovation centres, supported by a strong research base, established industrial capability, and a history of technological leadership. However, technological excellence alone will not secure long-term leadership.
The challenge is ensuring that innovations developed here, in the UK, are also commercialised and scaled here. If the UK wants to capture the economic and environmental benefits of next-generation aviation, government, industry, and investors must work together to create conditions that support early deployment and market growth. Without them, there is a real risk that technologies pioneered in the UK are commercialised elsewhere, with the associated benefits (like investment and jobs) following.
The opportunity in underserved markets
Next-generation aircraft design provides a useful example. Aerospace does impressive work optimising aircraft for the biggest current markets (single aisle and long-haul aircraft). These aircraft, both current and next generation, represent the best we can possibly do for these, the most developed products in the most mature markets, where generations of optimisation have already got us to what we have today.
At HAV, we think that disruptive change rarely happens in those most highly optimised spaces. Disruption often starts from adjacent markets that aren’t so well served by current solutions.
In aviation, we have such markets in domestic and regional aviation, in freight transport, and (for defence) in missions requiring long loiter times. Technologies optimised for these markets will look different - as Airlander does - and build valuable services because they operate differently, with different economics than today’s aircraft.
These opportunities represent areas of genuine demand where new technologies can enable viable services while generating the operational evidence needed to support wider adoption at scale. You could take the work undertaken in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland as an example of this.
Creating a broader pathway to net zero
Technologies matured in those markets, such as aircraft platforms or subsystems like hydrogen fuel cells/electric motors, have the potential to accelerate or enable transport system changes and component technologies that may, ultimately, benefit or disrupt today’s mainstream.
If aviation is going to be able to move into the implementation phase for sustainability tech, the focus must shift from individual technologies towards the systems that enable them. The industry’s transition is now resting on SAF, which is not yet scaling up to the required quantities. While SAF would allow the industry to comfortably stay with its existing technologies and aircraft, spreading our bets wider is key to assuring a transition to net zero. New markets provide different requirements, driving us to optimise different solutions. Serving these markets well creates immediate impact and can in turn prompt system changes and spillover benefits to contribute to a brighter future for the sector.