At aviation meeting, ESG takes backseat to jet shortages

A major annual air finance gathering largely skirted round the topic of sustainability this week - a rare departure from the industry's usual tight messaging on curbing emissions that left some delegates concerned about the impact of "ESG fatigue". In contrast with the attention devoted to climate topics at earlier events, this year's Airline Economics conference was overshadowed instead by the scramble facing airlines just to keep their jets flying as they deal with parts shortages. "The general consensus is that the sustainability subject is moving off centre," Simon Newitt, president of Sweden's Heart Aerospace, which is developing a 30-seat electric plane, told Reuters on the sidelines of the Dublin gathering. "There are obviously very short-term issues that are occupying the various players' minds, but that doesn't mean that sustainability has somehow gone away." Bottlenecks and parts shortages have forced airlines to keep older jets flying for longer, even as targets for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in the European Union come into force. Industry leaders say there is less optimism over reaching the industry's over-arching goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Aviation is responsible for 2-3% of carbon emissions. "The rose-tinted glasses have come off," Deion McCarthy, an executive at Dubai Aerospace Enterprise, told the conference.<br/>The increasingly tempered view comes weeks after airlines group IATA warned that not enough progress was being made to increase the supply of SAF as other problems take priority. The industry body insists that the targets are intact, however. "Long-term, it's going to be an important part of getting to net zero ... but 2024 was a tough year," said Gordon Grant, head of investor relations at lessor Aviation Capital Group.<br/>