Aviation Intelligence Reporter May 2026
Having the Energy to Change When Energy is in Short Supply
Zero Emission Aviation: Nearly, But Not Yet
Electric Airliners – No, Do Not Laugh. They Will Make Sense Soon
Life Imitating Art: Sovereignty and Competitiveness
John-Paul Sartre and the Case of the Missing Word – Chapter 2
261 and Non-EU Carriers: Weak Enforcement; Consequences for All
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Having the Energy to Change When Energy is in Short Supply
You would have to be living under a rock to not realise that fuel availability is currently
something of an issue. That much is clear. Not much else is clear. Precedent is no help. In
previous oil shocks, there was nothing that money could not fix. Oil prices skyrocketed, but supply
was never an issue. This time, the source of the fuel is in doubt. More than in doubt, under
attack. Sometimes, literally. Frankly, no-one knows what might happen. Luckily, there are
consultants’ opinions available to fit your preferred outcome. The International Energy Agency – a
body with, to be polite, a very average track record when it comes to predictions – says six weeks.
Mind you, it said six weeks two weeks ago, too. Perhaps it is confused by the fact that six weeks
is the industry standard reserve requirement. Every time they ask the industry before making their
predictions, they are told there that there is six week’s fuel in the tanks. There always is. It is
just that they do not normally ask. So, are we days away from a disaster or do we
have until after the summer for disaster to visit?
Zero Emission Aviation: Nearly, But Not Yet
In mid-April, the European Commission-backed Alliance for Zero Emission Aviation launched its
Roadmap to get us to nirvana. A theological word because the roadmap and the launch was itself full
of such terminology, or one word, anyway. We are ‘agnostic’ about the propulsion – hybrid,
electric, hydrogen, magic carpet. Clearly, the future is a very broad church. The one theological
term not used was ‘prayer’, but frankly, a bit of that would not go astray. Oh yes, there is
progress being made [see below] and it is always a good thing to keep in mind that things take
time. We are clearly at the tiny acorn, giant oak tree interface. Getting one, or a few, zero
emission flights into the air, even getting flights to remote islands and to small communities on
nine or 19 seaters, is one thing. Zero emission aviation must be more than that. It must be
industry wide, but not, you the industry wants you to understand, industry funded.
Electric Airliners – No, Do Not Laugh. They Will Make Sense Soon
By Phillip Butterworth-Hayes – Editor Unmanned Aviation
Of all the places on Earth to host a real aviation revolution, Norway is not perhaps an obvious
first choice. But in an April 2026 announcement – which deserved a lot more publicity than it got –
Bristow, Electra, Avinor and the Norwegian Civil Aviation Authority reported that next year they
would be launching test flights of a hybrid electric regional airliner between airports in the
north of the country. Electra is based in Virginia, USA and its hybrid/electric Ultra Short
aircraft operates from take-off and landing areas the size of a football pitch. It is likely to be
the world’s first quasi-electric airliner, though perhaps describing it as an ‘airliner’ is a bit
strong. It seats just nine passengers and
their luggage and has a range of 1,100 nm (with 45 mins reserve).
Life Imitating Art: Legacy Carriers Are Entitled to Entitlement
We started the most recent John-Paul Sartre [Part 2 is below] story as satire, but as with King
Charles III – king of Britian and much of the Commonwealth – schooling the self-praising republican
American legislature on what sovereignty means, the line between life and art is increasingly
blurred. What does sovereignty mean? According to those self-proclaimed scions of the free markets,
of red-in-tooth-and-claw capitalism, the almighty US carriers (the jury remains out on the European
legacy carriers) who bend their knees so meekly, so obsequiously, as Scott Kirby of United did this
month, it means competitiveness. Really? Kirby does not want a competitive competition; he wants to
cheat. A monopolist is someone who once pretended to believe in competition.
John-Paul Sartre and the Case of the Missing Word – Chapter 2
Even for an existential detective, being asked to find a lost meaning of a word was a fascinating case. Looks like I may have picked a bad week to give up drinking. The case was clear – find what had happened to ‘competitiveness’. Words are tricky things, their meaning can move around, literally like mercury on a tabletop. I was literally in pieces trying to think where to start when I realised ‘literally’ was literally like that. I was not in pieces, I was figuratively in pieces, but try telling that to someone that was trying to argue that being competitive meant tilting the playing field to guarantee victory.
261 and Non-EU Carriers: Weak Enforcement; Consequences for All: Part II
By Karolina Pruchniewicz, Managing Partner Pruchniewicz & Fabbricini Law, Warsaw
The enforcement gap under Regulation No 261/2004 we discussed last month results from the
simultaneous presence of several factors: the territorial scope of the Regulation; the limited
regulatory role of national enforcement bodies; and the practical difficulties associated with
enforcing low-value cross-border claims. Article 16(2) grants the right to lodge a complaint with
an NEB; however, as the Court clarified in Ruijssenaars, it does not require coercive measures
compelling the carrier to pay compensation in an individual case. The complaint mechanism is
primarily supervisory in character, although Member States may confer stronger decision-making
powers on their national authorities. A passenger seeking compensation under Article 7 is often
referred instead
to national court proceedings or to an out-of-court dispute resolution procedure.