Sustainable future flight business models: Motivations and barriers

This paper investigates stakeholders’ motivations and barriers within emerging Future Flight business models. Aviation is vital for developing econo-mies, and the urgent need for a transition towards more sustainable practices is gaining prominence. Hence, understanding the factors shaping Future Flight technology’s adoption is crucial. Drawing on ten interviews with pioneering Fu-ture Flight-related technologists, business leaders, social entrepreneurs, and pol-icymakers, we employed the Technology-Organisation-Environment frame-work and Transaction Cost Economics theory to analyse critical factors influ-encing Future Flight business models. We show participants are concerned about sustainable aviation fuel availability and Future Flight technologies’ read-iness. We emphasise the importance of technology maturity and commercial vi-ability for successful Future Flight implementation. Smaller start-ups are poised to lead such development because of their nimbleness and sustainability focus. Concurrently, larger companies face challenges transitioning from traditional business models. We identified regulatory frameworks, social acceptance, and public demand as key drivers. Finally, we show how entrepreneurs desire stand-ardised global regulations to support sustainable aviation practices. We offer insights into the complex dynamics of Future Flight adoption, highlighting companies’ need to evaluate their cultural and human resource strategies while emphasising global regulatory standards’ importance – as part of The CoFFEE Project’s (www.coffeefutureflight.com) broader research programme.