Why Aviation Must Decarbonize and Reclaim its Cultural Role.
Virgin’s Flight100, EcoJet, and Boom Show that Speed and Sustainability Must Align.
Travel today is measured by more than passenger counts or room nights. The post-pandemic decade has shifted expectations from travel as transport to Explore as transformation: journeys are now expected to deliver cultural depth, environmental care, and personal meaning alongside efficiency. Interbrand defines this new arena as Explore, where brand value is no longer tied to the scale of fleets or the number of properties, but to how effectively companies expand access, safeguard ecosystems, and enrich human experience.
In this context, expectation in Explore means that speed and affordability remain table stakes, but authenticity, ecosystem responsibility, and visible climate progress now determine legitimacy. Aviation, historically criticized as a climate liability, is the sector where those new expectations are being tested and rewritten.
Flight100: World-First Proof that SAF Works
Virgin Atlantic’s Flight100, flown in November 2023 from London Heathrow to New York JFK on 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), performed a strategic reclassification of what flight must be. The technical reality is straightforward: SAF, manufactured from waste oils, fats and other renewable feedstocks, can reduce lifecycle carbon emissions by as much as 70% when compared with conventional jet kerosene. Until Flight100, SAF had been used in blends; Flight100 was the first full-scale transatlantic demonstration of 100% SAF on a commercial route.
The flight’s practical success and public framing, summed up by Richard Branson’s remark that the world assumes things can’t be done “until you do it”, turned a laboratory possibility into a visible public precedent. Because the achievement was delivered in real operational conditions and not as a contained test, consumers, investors and regulators were given a credible proof point that the most difficult decarbonization challenge in aviation is solvable when industry, academia and government align.
The Supply Constraint that Now Defines Strategy
The symbolic victory, however, exposed the structural problem: SAF availability. Production today supplies only a vanishing share of global jet fuel demand, widely estimated at far less than one percent. That stark mismatch between technical viability and manufacturing scale is now the central constraint for any airline that wants to move beyond rhetoric. Flight100 therefore does two things at once: it proves SAF’s safety and efficacy, and it converts SAF from a technical curiosity into an immediate procurement problem. Governments are now under pressure to adopt policy frameworks, subsidies and incentives that make SAF investment bankable; energy and refinery companies face a market signal to scale capacity; airlines are forced to treat fuel access as a strategic asset rather than an operational input.
The competitive advantage will accrue to those that secure reliable SAF supply chains first, because doing so buys regulatory goodwill, investor confidence and visible differentiation for customers who now expect climate proof points.
EcoJet And Hydrogen: Short-Haul as a Testbed for Zero Emissions
Parallel to SAF’s long-haul focus, short-haul aviation is being rethought through alternative propulsion. EcoJet, a UK entrant positioning itself as a “flag carrier for green Britain,” is designing hydrogen-electric short-haul aircraft to eliminate tailpipe emissions on shorter routes. The implication is tactical and strategic: short-haul networks are naturally suited to radical power-train shifts because they operate from regional airports and require different refuelling logistics than long-haul hubs. If hydrogen-electric architectures scale, they turn domestic air travel into a near-term decarbonization win and create a migration path for fleets, route economics and airport infrastructure.
EcoJet’s approach demonstrates that new entrants can use novel propulsion to sidestep legacy fleet inertia, forcing incumbents to accelerate or cede legitimacy on domestic routes where rapid change is possible.
Boom: Speed Reimagined, Credibility Required
At the same time, a revival of supersonic travel is being pitched not as a luxury relic but as a functional expansion of Explore, provided it meets modern climate standards. Boom’s Overture aims to carry about 80 passengers at Mach 1.7 while running on 100% SAF, promising substantially reduced journey times (for example, New York to Frankfurt in roughly four hours).
The commercial and symbolic challenge is acute: Concorde failed because speed came without acceptable economics, noise controls or climate credentials. Boom’s thesis is that supersonic can return only if it integrates sustainability at the core of engineering and fuel choices. If Boom succeeds, the industry regains a speed premium that can be marketed to high-value travelers, but the market will only accept such a premium if the flights are credibly low carbon.
Ecosystem Alignment: The Real Lesson of Aviation’s Moves
What ties Virgin’s Flight100, EcoJet’s hydrogen experiments, and Boom’s supersonic ambition together is not a single technology but a single logic: systemic alignment. Flight100 succeeded because Boeing, Rolls-Royce, universities, research institutes and government agencies joined the airline. The future that matters for Explore is one in which manufacturers, energy producers, regulators, cities and brands co-author the pathway forward. That alignment is what converts a technical milestone into a sectoral expectation.
In the absence of cross-sector coordination, technical progress remains fragmented, supply remains constrained, and consumers are presented with promises that cannot be delivered at scale. In Explore, therefore, strategy is no longer about isolated investment in product or fleet; it is about convening the coalition that turns innovation into accessible reality.
Consequences for Brands and Policymakers
The consequence is immediate and directional: consumers are starting to judge airlines not only on punctuality or price but on tangible proof of climate progress. Investors are repricing risk for airlines without credible transition plans. Regulators face political pressure to underwrite strategic industrial shifts, subsidies for SAF, incentives for hydrogen infrastructure, or certification pathways for new vehicle classes.
Energy suppliers who ignore these signals risk forfeiting the demand they will later need to justify investments; airlines that defer strategic fuel procurement will be squeezed between rising regulatory expectations and competitors who can show demonstrable progress. In short, legitimacy (not simply lift and route density) is becoming the differential currency of survival.
Recommendations For Executives
Secure long-term SAF offtake agreements and invest in refinery partnerships to guarantee future fuel supply.
Run high-visibility demonstration projects that make climate progress tangible and shift consumer and regulator expectations.
Pilot hydrogen-electric operations on short-haul routes to accelerate zero-emissions learning at commercial scale.
Launch any supersonic initiatives with transparent lifecycle emissions plans, cost models, and noise mitigation measures.
Convene coalitions of manufacturers, researchers, energy suppliers, and governments to de-risk investment and deliver transformation at scale.
Bottom Line: Decarbonization and Ecosystem Alignment Define Aviation’s Future
Aviation’s credibility now depends on making transformation visible and verifiable. Flight100 turned SAF from theoretical to demonstrable; EcoJet and Boom signal that propulsion and speed can be rethought without abandoning climate goals.
The supply constraints and policy gaps exposed by these moves create the strategic terrain for the next decade: those who lead on fuel security, coalition building and public proof points will define what Explore means in practice. Those who wait for mandates will find themselves judged not by their network maps but by whether they helped deliver the systems that make modern travel legitimate.
