On 2 July 2026, the FAA quietly proposed repealing a rule that's stood for 53 years. The ban on civil supersonic flight over land. The exact regulation that killed Concorde's route map and, with it, its economics. Meanwhile, Qantas has spent the past decade engineering Project Sunrise — non-stop Sydney to London, built entirely on the premise that passengers will trade speed for comfort and no stopover. Two completely different bets on the future of long-haul travel, unfoldi

AI can predict a fault. AI can order the part. AI can optimise the maintenance schedule. But at 2am, on a cold ramp, with an aircraft grounded and passengers due to board in four hours, somebody still has to fix it. My latest article looks at where AI is genuinely transforming aviation maintenance — and where the industry still depends on experience, judgement and licensed engineers.

Qantas is performing again. Leaner. Faster. More profitable. But there’s a trade-off in aviation that doesn’t show up on a balance sheet— and it only becomes visible when things go wrong.

Bonza was not just a funding story, or a victim of the incumbents. It was an execution and resilience problem in a market that punishes weak airlines very quickly indeed.