As 2026 opens, the sustainability movement, specifically in the USA, stands in sharp contrast to where it was 12 months earlier.
This time last year, Joe Biden was wrapping up his presidency and Democrats still controlled the balance of power in Washington, which they had used to advance a green-energy agenda aligned politically with European policies.
The airline and aerospace industries were fully behind the net-zero rush, touting the promise of sustainable aviation fuel and electric-propulsion technologies.
Then came the 20 January 2025 inauguration of President Donald Trump, whose campaign platform called for boosting oil production and reversing what Trump has called the “Green New Scam”. In Washington, black gold was back in fashion.
Love or loath him, the US president has achieved some of what he promised.
Just days ago, Trump posted on Truth Social, “Venezuela will be turning over between 30 and 50 MILLION barrels of high-quality sanctioned oil to the United States of America”. The comment followed the 3 January capture by US commandos of Venezuela’s former leader Nicolas Maduro.
Despite shifting political winds, the aviation industry’s position remains unchanged. Net-zero remains the goal and over in Europe government-aided development programmes continue, with the EU moving forward with plans to fund development of hybrid-electric narrowbody powerplants, among a raft of other low-emission technologies.
But such a stark shift on the other side of the Atlantic does not help the sustainability movement, either politically or practically.
Inescapable realities are a further drag on progress: IATA recently said SAF production still “falls short” of expectations – and costs five times more than Jet A.
And becuase aerospace is what is, and bringing new aircraft or engines to market is more expensive, complex and costly than originally hoped, not all of the developers currently in the race will reach the finish line.
It has become clear in the last year that there are no magic bullets. The next major efficiency bump in the airline sector seems unlikely to arrive until the latter half of the 2030s, when Airbus and Boeing aim to introduce new narrowbodies.
Meantime, efficiency advancements seem likely to remain incremental, as they have always been.
On that front, Boeing and several partners recently evaluated a new onboard data communications system intended to improve flight-trajectory planning, thereby minimising delays and reducing fuel burn.
With help from partners – including Collins Aerospace, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Honeywell, NASA, Thales and Viasat – Boeing evaluated the system during test flights using a United Airlines 737 Max “ecoDemonstrator”.
Political winds aside, it is worth noting sustainability goals make perfect business sense even if not tied to climate goals.
When fuel is one-third of their costs, airlines will always seek to burn less of it, so long as doing so works out cheaper in the end. After all, that is why each generation of new turbofans going back many decades is at least 10% more efficient than those they replace.