Four airline CEOs expressed their deep concern over the feasibility of net zero targets at the IATA Congress 2026 in Rio de Janeiro and called for urgent changes across the energy and policy landscape. Richard Quest shared that Willie floated the idea that two thousand and fifty is not going to happen and that the target date is not going to happen, noting that reading between the lines you are basically saying it is not going to happen. Güliz Öztürk of Pegasus Airlines shared that we all work for it to happen we all try to make it happen. Con Korfiatis of Oman Air shared that if things continue at the current pace it will not happen so something has to change and change quickly. Luis Rodrigues of TAP Air Portugal shared that he thinks we people of faith and recalled that in nineteen sixty two when Kennedy said we are going to go to the moon there was no way that is going to happen so we still believe it is going to happen.
Con Korfiatis of Oman Air shared that you are asking the wrong people the question Richard so we are not energy producers ourselves but that is the question that comes to his mind is the guys who know how to produce the stuff are struggling and they are not coming up with the solutions. Adrian Neuhauser of Abra Group shared that it is interesting because it is part of the same theme that you are creating here right we go back to your engine question you know we are the airline we face the consumer we do a lot of work in terms of keeping the fleet flying flying customers etcetera we cannot solve everything. Con Korfiatis of Oman Air shared that our responsibility as an industry though is to speak up we cannot sit there and silent and have that play out and just accept that it comes at us and that Willie’s been a tremendous proponent of this and he is very very vocal on it and we just need to keep pushing the message because it ultimately gets to a point where they want to lump it onto the industry we should have done enough lobbying and enough push back through the period in between to make sure we do not end up in that place it is not our fault we are not holding anything back ourselves.
Güliz Öztürk of Pegasus Airlines shared that we have a very young fleet and it is five point two years old one hundred and twenty nine aircraft so it is like the decarbonisation at the source so this is one tool that you can do it but a complete transformation for the sector industry takes time it is for SAF and to make this mission possible it is a stakeholder engagement and stakeholder management like initiatives all together otherwise we cannot do it on our own and airlines will keep saying it we will push for it but if the oil producers are not there to produce the governments only with the policy it does not make sense we need some maybe incentives or any other initiatives to support for the production otherwise the mission will be impossible. She added that the aviation sector itself is seen as a strategic asset by the governments by the countries that is for sure but as it is a highly regulated one it is easy to put a regulation and make the airlines and wait for the airlines to apply and obey those regulations is much much more easier and that is the specific reason why for example when you say they put the quota on the airlines which is only two point six per cent of the carbon emission is produced by the airlines while maritime for example is probably five six times higher.
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KEY takeaways from IATA AGM 2026 in Rio de Janeiro
