The past week has been revealing for those trying to understand the role major aerospace groups are likely to play in cutting aviation’s dependence on fossil fuels. In the space of only four days, the world’s largest aircraft manufacturers announced strategic decisions that could reshape their role in sustainable aviation for the next two decades.
First, on September 17, Boeing unexpectedly said that it is closing its Boeing NeXt innovation division, just over two years after forming it in July 2018 with a mandate to advance the company’s capabilities in new technologies such as electric aircraft and autonomous flight operations. The company admitted that the division had become a victim of the extreme financial constraints facing the wider Boeing group in the wake of the one-two punch of the extended grounding of its 737 Max airliner and the fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic.
