Don’t sideline environmental sustainability

An air transport industry in survival mode must continue to innovate toward sustainable aviation fuels, cleaner engines and other technologies. Airline strategist Asteris Apostolidis makes the case.

The global coronavirus crisis has made many of us re-evaluate various aspects of our lives, and the air transportation industry is beginning to do the equivalent. Much of the personal anxiety related to the pandemic does not derive from the present but mostly from our projections of the future, including fears about job security and the long-term economic effects of the pandemic.

In this environment, it could be tempting for the air transportation sector to think only about short-term survival and back away from an emphasis on environmental sustainability that was just beginning to emerge, though with pushback from some, before the virus struck. Backing away would be a mistake. Sustainability in aviation should not be discarded anymore as a niche topic; rather, it needs to be adopted as a core strategy, and the timing is now more relevant than ever.