You could have, for example, America’s fighter jets, which cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and massive cargo aircraft, which require elite crews to operate. Although these weapons could turn the tide of war, they were also a message of deterrence; we have better machines, therefore we are harder to defeat.

As of 2026, all that’s changed, and new technology is defining how wars are fought and how goods are moved around the world.

The Old Ways Of War

The old ways were about creating the perfect machine. According to defence analysts, Western militaries were obsessed with building ’exquisite platforms’. This means they wanted to create technically flawless, ultra-capable, and expensive weapons to deter their adversaries.

Serhiy Goncharov, the CEO of the National Association of Ukrainian Defence Industries, which represents about 100 Ukrainian companies, told Business Insider that the West’s philosophy of fielding limited numbers of cutting-edge systems could be a serious disadvantage in a prolonged war. He claimed that those systems are good to have, but mass is key.

Gabrielius Landsbergis, the former defence minister of Lithuania, a NATO ally bordering Russia, said that while the West focused on new and expensive weaponry that takes a long time to manufacture, Russia had been ’building something cheap, that’s expendable, that’s fast’.

The F-35 Lightning II fighter jet and the C-130 Hercules cargo aircraft are some of the best examples of this policy. They are extraordinary machines and a testament to incredible feats of engineering. Both cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build and operate.

However, they have major weaknesses. They are too expensive to be lost in battle, very complicated to replace quickly, and entirely dependent on human beings to fly them.

This last point matters more than all the others because humans are organic. They get tired, they experience fear, and they need food, rest, and the psychological will to keep moving. If a C-130 is shot down, you lose an expensive aircraft, the crew, the supplies they were carrying, and the ability to resupply the troops waiting at the other end.

In a world where missiles are AI-driven with deadly accuracy, and modern battlefields are expanding their theatres into the Indo-Pacific, Ukraine, and the Middle East with dense networks of radar arrays, surface-to-air missiles, and electronic jamming equipment, these kinds of aircraft are sitting targets.

Defence planners call these areas ‘Anti-Access Area Denial’ (A2/AD) zones. To keep things simple, these are regions where your expensive, irreplaceable aircraft can be shot down as soon as they enter. The exquisite platform now turns out to be a single point of failure dressed up as a super-weapon.

Losing Is Now Part Of The Plan

Nobody wants to lose a billion-dollar piece of equipment at the first sign of trouble. So, a new, radically different military philosophy is taking hold at defence ministries across the world. They call it the ’economy of attrition’.

The idea is simple, yet counterintuitive. If assets are very likely to be destroyed in a modern war, the best course of action is not to prevent it, but to build systems that can be destroyed by the dozen while the mission continues anyway.

ALSO READ: Choking of Strait of Hormuz tests limits of war risk insurance

Instead of one colossal and invincible aircraft, it may be better to deploy hundreds of cheaper, autonomous ones. If the enemy shoots down 10 of them, the other 90 can still complete the mission. If those units cost less to build than the enemy’s resources used to destroy them, you eventually win the war of attrition by turning the enemy’s military strength into a financial liability.

Governments and militaries are building networks of self-piloting aircraft, ground robots, and underwater vehicles, all connected by a centralised artificial intelligence. These systems are capable of sustaining military operations without putting a single human being in direct danger.

Equipment is now designed to be lost in battle.

The Drones That Could Replace A Fleet Of Cargo Planes

There is a new doctrine at the Pentagon, and even at allied and enemy HQs. Militaries have decided to replace cargo planes with drones. A primary example of this doctrine in action is the Grid Aero Lifter Lite, built by a California-based startup. It is an autonomous cargo drone without a pilot, a co-pilot, or life support systems. It is built with minimal moving parts, can be assembled quickly in remote locations, and is priced at a fraction of what a single C-130 costs to procure and operate.

Aero CEO Arthur Dubois, “We’re focused on solving major problems for the warfighter, starting with contested logistics. Those same challenges of range, resilience, and operating in constrained environments also define many commercial, humanitarian, and remote operations. This funding allows us to rapidly field autonomous aircraft to deliver scalable capability into real-world operations to meet growing demand across missions.”

The rapid fielding is catching the attention of major investors. Ben Hemani, founding partner at Bison Ventures, pointed to Grid Aero’s execution speed, “What Grid Aero has accomplished in less than 18 months is rare. Not only have they already built their flagship aircraft, but they are also building a logistics capability that operates where traditional systems can’t. We’re excited to fund the next phase of their growth, as they move from rapid development to real-world scale.”

The Grid Aero approach to logistics is very different from the old method of hub-and-spoke logistics, where goods flow from a central warehouse outward along fixed delivery routes. It is replaced by what Dubois calls ’the grid’, a distributed mesh network where hundreds of thousands of nodes operate simultaneously across a wide area.

The Grid Aero Lifter is a drone carrier that features advanced self-healing capabilities, ensuring that if drones are lost, the AI instantly reroutes the remaining units to cover gaps and maintain network integrity. To operate effectively in contested military zones where GPS is routinely jammed, the system utilises visual odometry, which allows the drones to navigate by reading the landscape much like a human does. Furthermore, the entire swarm benefits from real-time learning, as every drone continuously shares its data with all other units to ensure they learn and adapt together as a single entity.

Regarding the shift toward these swarms, Anduril founder Palmer Luckey said, “You know, if I can have one guy command and control 100 aircraft, that’s a lot easier than having to have a pilot in every single one. It puts a lot fewer American lives at risk.”

Advent Of The Mechanical Foot Soldier

There are drones in the air, but there is something even more dramatic on the ground. In February 2026, a San Francisco startup by the name of Foundation Robotics delivered its first Phantom MK1 humanoid robot to Ukraine for combat testing on the front lines. These machines are somewhat similar in concept to a prototype T-800 model from the Terminator movie.

The Phantom MK1 is science fiction coming to life. The MK1 stands at 180 centimetres, weighs 80 kilograms, and is encased in jet black steel with a tinted glass visor where its face should be. It’s not a remote-controlled toy operated by someone at a comms station. It’s a completely AI-powered machine designed to replace a human infantryman. There are currently 2 Phantom MK-1 prototypes in the Ukrainian theatre.

“You should really work hard to give the US military smarter tools so that they can be more effective,” Sankaet Pathak, founder of Foundation Robotics, told TechFirst.

ALSO READ: As threat of war looms, Europe hikes spending on military and defence equipment

He is not shy about giving the Phantom an M4 Carbine, adding, “If you’re first body in and you’re docile, then the enemies are not going to really expose themselves. So, you have to be the first body in and deadly.”

The 20 internal electric motors provide the ability to climb stairs, navigate rubble-filled urban environments, and enter low bunkers that wheeled military vehicles cannot reach. It’s also designed to emit a thermal heat signature indistinguishable from a human being, deliberately tricking enemy sensors into firing at it instead of the real soldiers nearby. In short, it’s a decoy and a grunt.

The psychological effects on the enemy are clear. The robots do not feel pain, they are not afraid of anything, and they do not get shocked or confused. A human soldier, on the other hand, would flinch if he got hit in the chest, and might drop and stop fighting. A Phantom humanoid robot hit in the chest still keeps shooting. This relentlessness is deeply demoralising to human opponents in a way that no weapon was fully anticipated to be.

However, the model is not perfect. The battery drains rapidly under the immense energy demands of 20 motors running simultaneously, while the complex joints remain highly vulnerable to damage. Foundation is already addressing these issues through the release of the Phantom MK2, which was expected to come out by the end of April 2026, featuring a waterproof chassis and improved battery life.

Foundation proclaimed that it will produce 50,000 Phantom MK-1 units by 2027. Hordes of robot soldiers might flood Ukraine by this time next year.

However, these humanoid robots also have civilian applications with a foundation aiming to sell them at $100,000 per unit as warehouse and industrial logistic workers. They can perform in conditions that are hazardous for humans, and can work almost around the clock without wages, protest or exhaustion.

Ground Robots Already Saving Lives

There is a robotic ground vehicle operating in Ukraine called the Milrem THeMIS, which is built in Estonia. It is a heavily built, tracked robot designed for endurance and heavy lifting.

Running on a hybrid diesel-electric engine, it can operate for up to 15 hours straight. It is mostly used for casualty evacuation, rolling forward under fire to retrieve wounded soldiers and carrying them to safety, which spares human medics from being shot while doing so. The vehicle has the capability to carry up to 750 kilograms, extendable to 1,200 kilograms, and can climb 60-degree slopes.

The long-term vision for these machines is expanding. “In the future, robotic systems will take over soldiers’ tasks on the battlefield,” notes Raul Rikk, the Capability Development Director at Milrem Robotics. “We envision robotic systems that can respond to verbal commands, similar to traditional military units.”

Like aerial drones, the dual-use potential is massive.

“While our current focus is primarily on defence due to the ongoing war in Ukraine,” Rikk added, “we have a strong track record of developing unmanned prototypes for civilian applications, including firefighting, street cleaning, and forest planting.”

The Rheinmetall Mission Master SP, built in Germany, operates on a completely different philosophy from the Milrem THeMIS. It is fast, quiet, and ultra-powered, leaving no heat or sound signature for an enemy to detect. It uses the Wolfpack software, which allows multiple units to coordinate autonomously so that they can surround a perimeter or scout ahead without any human giving moment-to-moment commands.

Japan’s Ground Self-Defence Force is currently testing both these technologies, pointing to a future where THeMIS handles brute, sustained work while the Mission Master executes stealth and precision.

The Kill Web

Autonomous robot armies utilise technology to integrate logistical carriers for effortless troop transport, resilient robotic foot soldiers capable of enduring heavy fire, and robot medics designed for evacuations, strikes, and reconnaissance.

They are all tied together with an even more powerful technology. In 20th-century military communication, the process worked in a straight line. A radar spots a target and notifies a command centre, which then sends a pilot to destroy the target. This was known as the ’kill chain’. Before the kill chain could be completed, the target often moved.

The kill chain is now being replaced by the ’kill web’, a decentralised AI network that connects every drone, robot, soldier, satellite, and radar into one seamless system. Software platforms like Anduril’s Lattice serve as the brain of this web by processing data from thousands of sources simultaneously and identifying threats in fractions of a second.

This autonomy extends into the deep ocean. The navies of the world are deploying autonomous underwater vehicles to protect the 1.39 million kilometres of fibre optic cables on the ocean floor that carry 99% of global internet traffic and the kill web’s foundational data. Companies like Anduril are already building for this domain with autonomous submarines like the Dive XL.

“It’s not remote-controlled by this computer. It’s doing it on the brain, on the submarine itself. If I told it to go off and perform some mission that’s months long, like, ‘Go to this target, listen for this particular signature, and if you see this signature, run; if you see this one, hide; if you see this one, follow it’, it could do that all on its own without being detected, without communicating with it,” Palmer Luckey explained.

Bloodless Wars

The singular, expensive, irreplaceable weapons of the past are giving way to a vast, self-healing, intelligent network of expendable machines, which keep fighting, delivering, and communicating no matter what is thrown at them.

The Pentagon’s traditional contractors, such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, are slowly losing ground to startups that focus on the economy of attrition. The US Air Force’s autonomous wingman drone programme was recently awarded to Anduril and General Atomics, bypassing Boeing and Lockheed entirely.

Not so long ago, venture capitalists were not too keen on defence investments, but now they’re flooding into these ’new primes’ with the reasoning that autonomous defence capability and supply chains are prerequisites for global stability. It represents a massive geopolitical shift. As Palmer Luckey puts it, “I’ve always said that we need to transition from being the world’s police to being the world’s gun store.”

The drone that resupplies soldiers under fire today will be the same technology delivering packages to your doorstep next year. Similarly, the software currently coordinating robot soldiers will soon be managing warehouse inventories, while the underwater robots guarding fibre-optic cables will simultaneously protect military communications, and your ability to stream videos or read this article.

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Announcing the move, Capital A founder and CEO Tony Fernandes said Hamid’s onboarding will help spearhead growth, including a possible listing of the business in Hong Kong ⁠by mid-2026.

In January 2026, Capital A completed the sale of its short-haul aviation business to AirAsia X, allowing the latter to focus on expanding operations and reducing costs while Capital A looked to grow its businesses in areas including logistics, branding and aircraft maintenance. The move, along with Hamid’s appointment, comes amid both companies facing headwinds caused by the Middle East conflict, which has sent jet fuel prices soaring.

Capital A’s shares are down 27% over the past month, while AirAsia X’s have plunged 41%.

According to Tony Fernandes, Capital A has seen an ‌impact from the Middle East conflict on its businesses, which include aircraft maintenance, freight and logistics, food catering and branding services. However, AirAsia would work to keep its fares low, while desisting from the practice of cancelling flights amid the ongoing conflict. The budget carrier would also provide updates on its operations in the first week of April.

Capital A is also aiming to list its branding unit, AirAsia Next, in the United States by the end of 2026, reviving a plan that was called off two years ago.

Tony Fernandes also stated that the listing plans for Capital A and AirAsia Next were dependent on the group’s exit from PN17 classification, a tag given by Malaysia’s stock exchange to financially distressed companies.

Capital A has been classified as PN17 since 2022, after incurring massive losses due to COVID-19 pandemic-related disruptions.

“We just need to submit our audited accounts (to the stock exchange). I don’t want to jump the gun, but that’s the last thing we have (to do),” Tony Fernandes concluded.

The post Capital A names Effendy Shahul Hamid as its Deputy CEO appeared first on International Finance.

Instead of cutting passenger journeys, the mentioned efficiency measures would be far more effective in ensuring an immediate 11% reduction in carbon footprint by using the most efficient aircraft that airlines already have more strategically on routes they already fly, rather than providing lip service to terms like sustainable fuels or carbon offsets.

The researchers analysed over 27 million commercial flights in 2023, covering 26,000 city pairs and nearly 3.5 billion passengers. The methodology revealed enormous variability in emissions efficiency, with some routes producing nearly 900 grams of CO₂ per kilometre for each paying passenger, almost 30 times higher than the most efficient, at around 30 grams of CO₂ per kilometre. Published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment, the study claims to be the first to assess the variation in flights’ operational efficiency around the world.

As aircraft become increasingly fuel-efficient, the amount of carbon dioxide per kilometre flown has been decreasing, but the increase in the number of flights has far outpaced this, leading to higher emissions that are contributing to the climate crisis. Aviation experts predict that by 2050, carbon dioxide emissions from aviation could double or even triple. The new analysis also revealed that more polluting flights were common from smaller airports in the United States and Australia, as well as in parts of Africa and the Middle East. In contrast, airports in India, Brazil, and Southeast Asia were dominated by less polluting flights.

Flights out of airports like Atlanta and New York were among the least efficient, nearly 50% worse than those at the most efficient airports, such as Abu Dhabi and Madrid. The UN aviation body, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), is pinning its hopes on an “unambitious and problematic” offsetting scheme, known as CORSIA, to reduce emissions, but has not yet made any airline purchase a carbon credit.

In fact, Khaled Diab, the communications director at Carbon Market Watch, remarked, “No airline has yet been obliged to use a single carbon credit under the UN’s Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA). And when they are, CMW research reveals the European Union’s Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) imposes a carbon price on aviation emissions that is 25 times higher. This clearly demonstrates that cap-and-trade systems are better for the climate and should be expanded.”

Prof Stefan Gössling at Linnaeus University in Sweden, who led the research, said, “We are currently stuck with a global situation where there is no hope that aviation will reduce its emissions.”

According to him, all-economy-seat planes, 95% flight occupancy, and using today’s most efficient aircraft could cut fuel use and therefore emissions by 50%-75%. It would also mean far less sustainable fuel would be needed to make flying nearly emissions-free in the future.

“I always thought air transport was already very efficient, and that is also what airlines like to tell people. But, in reality, it’s very inefficient because of three factors: using old aircraft, transporting people [in premium seats] with lots of space, and often having aircraft that are not fully loaded. In 2023, the average ‘load factor’, seat occupancy, was almost 80%,” Gössling added.

Crunching the details

The study also analysed the efficiency of 26,000 pairs of cities based on the amount of CO₂ emitted per kilometre per passenger, using data from 3.5 billion passengers who flew a total distance of 6.8 trillion km (145 trips to the sun, 577 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions, equivalent to the annual emissions of Germany).

The study found that US flights were 14% more polluting than the global average, China had efficiencies slightly above average, and the UK, the third-largest aviation polluter in the world, had efficiencies slightly below the 84.4g of CO₂ per passenger kilometre average.

The most efficient route was Milan, Italy, to Incheon Airport near Seoul, South Korea (31.6g CO₂/pkm). The least efficient route was in Papua New Guinea, with the second-worst from Ironwood Airport to Minneapolis/St Paul in the US (805g CO₂/pkm).

“While airlines often claim that fuel savings are in their own economic interest, the reality is that many airlines continue to fly with old aircraft, low load factors, or growing shares of premium-class seating,” the researchers noted.

“The most important factor was replacing premium seats with denser economy seating: First- and business-class passengers are responsible for more than three times the emissions of economy passengers, and up to 13 times more in the biggest premium cabins. Other policies that might encourage greater efficiency include softer policies like requiring airlines to disclose an efficiency rating for each route. You wouldn’t want to fly with an airline that is rated F. Market-based policies might include airports charging higher landing fees for more polluting aircraft, which also makes local communities’ air dirtier,” Gössling claimed.

While the efficiency gains that the study identified, such as replacing older, more polluting planes, would bring improvements, they would also confront the reality of an industry operating on low margins. However, Gössling argued that the sector was stuck in a business model that maximised passenger numbers to boost profit and that it could operate fewer, fuller flights with higher ticket prices.

He said that many flights are taken because they are so cheap, commenting, “We know that a lot of air transport demand is induced. If you increase the cost, people will just choose a different type of holiday.”

Facing the reality

The senior vice-president of sustainability at the International Air Transport Association, the trade association for the world’s airlines, Marie Owens Thomsen, told Reuters, “Airlines have a vested interest in reducing fuel burn and maximising load factors, but the order backlog for aircraft exceeds 5,000 planes due to supply-chain failures.”

She further added that real progress in reducing aviation emissions would come from the use of SAF, CORSIA, and the modernisation of air routes.

Aviation accounts for 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Still, flying is concentrated among wealthy passengers, with 1% of the world’s population responsible for 50% of aviation emissions, while only 10% of people fly at all in any one year, and 4% fly abroad.

An ICAO spokesperson said its analysis showed that operational improvements could account for 4%-11% of the carbon emission reductions required to achieve net zero, while factors such as cleaner fuel and innovative technologies will do the remainder.

Meanwhile, with the aviation sector racing to decarbonise, how much might the cost of a passenger ticket increase by 2050? Naomi Allen, Head of Research at RAeS (Royal Aeronautical Society), crunched the numbers to find out the reality.

Decarbonising aviation will make the sector more expensive and, therefore, ticket prices will rise, making flights less accessible to passengers. Assuming that 25% of the ticket cost is for fuel, by 2050, the industry will face another dilemma, like fuel cost, including the real value (CAF or SAF), along with the penalties due to non-compliance with the mandate and the cost of GGR (Greenhouse Gas Removal) for any remaining carbon emissions.

On the other hand, the University of Oxford report assumes that fuel (kerosene and SAF) costs and GGR costs are evenly distributed across tickets and are agnostic as to which flights use SAF or not. While the United Kingdom’s SAF mandate does not yet specify requirements for 2050, according to Allen, the industry has assumed that the requirement will be 70% of fuel being SAF, the same as the ReFuelEU mandate requirement.

“The average ERF of the SAF used is assumed to be 70%; this may be an underestimate for PtL SAF by 2050, but it is higher than the ERF typically seen for many other types of SAF at the current time. Assuming Net Zero for the sector in 2050, all net carbon emissions resulting from the fuel outside the mandate and the ERF of the SAF will have to be offset by GGR,” Allen told The Guardian.

The study also ignores inflation between now and 2050, assuming that the price of fossil-fuel-derived kerosene in 2050 will be $700/ton, although the actual price will depend on the pace of decarbonisation in other sectors. The report assumes that the supply of SAF is sufficient to meet demand up to the level of the SAF mandate and that the supply of GGR is unlimited. In reality, SAF and GGR may not be available to the aviation sector in the necessary quantities, as there will be competition for resources between other sectors and scaling constraints.

Greenhouse gas removals by 2050 are expected to be permanent. However, the estimated costs for these removals vary significantly. The World Economic Forum has stated that achieving a Direct Air Capture (DAC) cost of $150 per ton of CO₂ by 2050 is both necessary and feasible. In contrast, the recently published Independent Review of Greenhouse Gas Removals for the British government predicts that the costs for permanent removals in 2050 will be much higher. For the study, GGR prices of $100/ton and $600/ton are used; a midpoint of $350/ton CO₂ is used to capture the probable range due to alternative GGR methods and processes, and significant uncertainty. A midpoint of $350/ton CO₂ is used for some calculations.

It is anticipated that all decarbonisation will come from SAF and GGR, and that other decarbonisation options, such as electrification and hydrogen, will not have a significant impact on aviation emissions (either due to scalability or technology/infrastructure maturity) by 2050. Costs will be affected differently by other decarbonisation strategies. Moreover, the research found that, provided the price of SAF is about as expected or lower, and the cost of GGR is high, then meeting the SAF mandate will, on average, result in lower ticket prices than if Net Zero is achieved entirely through GGR.

On the other hand, if lower GGR costs are achieved, then meeting the SAF mandate is likely to raise ticket prices by 10%-15%. Note that this assumes that enough SAF will be available to meet the mandate, but it was also calculated that if the SAF mandate is not met, then non-compliance penalties could raise ticket prices by as much as 15% more, depending on the extent of the excess demand. The scenario is plausible, given doubts about the ability to scale up the supply of SAF.

The post Is cleaner aviation within reach? appeared first on International Finance.

The official remarked, “The partnership is also active through academic and technical cooperation, as Boeing is a founding partner of Al-Faisal University and has partnerships with King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, or KAUST, and King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology.”

While stating industry and supply chain localisation as key objectives for companies operating in Saudi Arabia, Al-Jomoai added that partnerships with firms like SAMI are boosting the Kingdom’s goal of localising more than 50% of its military spending by 2030. Boeing considers itself a central partner in localisation and technology transfer.

According to Al-Jomoai, Boeing’s relationship with Saudi Arabia, which spans more than 81 years, has been a fruitful one, with the aviation giant delivering more than 170 commercial aircraft in recent years.

Boeing’s existing contracts within Saudi Arabia’s military-industrial set-up include maintenance and technical support for advanced defence systems, most notably F-15 fighter jets, with the Kingdom being the largest operator of the aircraft outside the United States. These contracts also cover Apache attack helicopters and AH-6i aircraft, light helicopter gunships often known as the “Little Bird.”

Al-Jomoai said that although support agreements cover both commercial and defence sectors, defence operations currently dominate in the Kingdom’s aviation discourse, as the Gulf major continues to expand its military spending.

According to Boeing’s website, Boeing Defence, Space & Security’s relationship with the Royal Saudi Air Force began in 1978 when Saudi Arabia selected its first fleet of F-15C/D aircraft, forming the backbone of the Kingdom’s air defence.

The fleet expanded significantly in December 2011 when Saudi Arabia and the United States signed a military sales agreement, the largest in America’s history at the time, covering F-15SA fighter jets, AH-64E Apache attack helicopters, and AH-6 light armed reconnaissance helicopters.

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“Total revenue increased to USD 1,725.2 million in 2025 from USD 1,429.6 million in 2024, or 20.7%, due to higher lease revenues from newly acquired aircraft, including through business combinations, and increased maintenance revenue. Total assets also increased to USD 16,547.7 million in 2025 from USD 13,033.3 million in 2024, as a result of aircraft acquired during the year,” the venture stated.

The Dubai-based company also spent about USD 5 billion on acquisitions in 2025, including the USD 2 billion purchase of rival Nordic Aviation Capital (NAC).

“Around 2025 was another exceptional year for the DAE franchise. We announced and closed the acquisition of NAC. In total, we acquired 280 and sold 111 aircraft. Our fleet of Owned and Managed aircraft grew by 38% to 604 at year-end 2025. Full-year revenues grew 21% while pre-tax profitability increased 43%, delivering continued improvement in pre-tax profit margin and return on equity,” Firoz Tarapore, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of DAE, said, while mentioning that despite the revenue growth, the balance sheet disciplines of capital adequacy, funding, and liquidity metrics were maintained.

“We intend to be very active on the sell side as well. Mainly for portfolio management purposes,” Firoz Tarapore said during the earnings call on February 4.

Stating that Dubai Aerospace Enterprise Engineering had “a very, very good year,” Firoz Tarapore said that the addition of a new hangar at its Amman, Jordan, added five new widebody and narrowbody capable lines, increasing capacity by approximately 30%. The company now has 22 fully operational lines of heavy maintenance.

“We already were the leading independent airframe heavy maintenance provider in the region, but our new size now takes us closer to the top of the league tables of global independent providers of heavy maintenance. We’re not done yet. I think for us there’s plenty of growth yet,” Firoz Tarapore noted.

The CEO further noted that Dubai Aerospace Enterprise Engineering had raised USD 3.9 billion in long-term debt financing through multiple public and private transactions during the financial year. Revenue grew 13% year-on-year to USD 211 million, while profitability grew 47% to USD 64 million.

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The Chinese military reported at approximately 1:30 AM on January 23rd that a foreign cargo vessel was sinking near a shoal. In response, they dispatched aircraft to conduct search operations, while the Chinese Coast Guard sent two vessels to assist with rescue efforts.

Additionally, they informed the media that one person was receiving emergency medical treatment. China’s maritime authorities also arranged for further rescue forces to proceed to the scene.

The Philippine Coast Guard, for its part, dispatched two vessels and two aircraft to rescue the Philippine crew of a Singapore-flagged cargo vessel carrying iron ore heading to the southern Chinese city of Yangjiang.

“The PCG Command Centre received information from the Hong Kong Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre that 10 of the 21 Filipino crew members had been rescued by a passing China Coast Guard vessel,” it said.

A Scarborough Shoal is one of Asia’s most disputed maritime features and a hotspot for sovereignty and fishing rights disputes.

The Chinese military announced that it had deployed naval and air force units to “expel” a Philippine government aircraft that it said had “illegally intruded” into airspace over the atoll.

The South China Sea is almost entirely claimed by China, which overlaps the exclusive economic zones of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, ‌the Philippines, and Vietnam.

Despite the mishap, tensions remained at the disputed area, as the Philippines and the United States conducted a joint maritime sail in the South China Sea, underscoring growing military cooperation between the two treaty allies.

The joint sail involved coordinated manoeuvres aimed at improving interoperability and operational coordination between the armed forces. It also marked the 11th maritime cooperative activity conducted by the two allies since November 2023, reflecting the increasing frequency of their joint engagements. Meanwhile, China remains determined in its efforts to deny the Philippines’ claim on the area as its exclusive economic zone.

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Guillaume Faury’s grim prediction, which he delivered while interacting with France Inter radio, coincided with the latest feat of Boeing, where the latter, buoyed by strong demand for its 787 long-haul jet, on December 10, posted 1,000 gross orders or a net total of 908 after cancellations between January and November 2025, compared with 700 net orders for Airbus.

“The fact that we have been ahead on orders for five years means our order backlog is much higher than that of our main competitor. But they have indeed been helped by the American President as part of tariff negotiations with several countries, where plane orders became part of the resolution of trade disputes,” Guillaume Faury noted.

Meanwhile, United States President Donald Trump claimed credit for helping Boeing reach the 1,000 mark after airlines announced orders for hundreds of wide-body jets coinciding with the Republican’s tour of the Gulf region in May this year.

“Boeing gave me the award for the greatest salesman in the history of Boeing, which was a nice little award. I think I have sold 1,000 Boeing planes… Now all they have to do is make them…but they will,” Trump told a group of business leaders.

As per the analysts, several airlines either placed Boeing orders or timed previously planned order announcements to soothe trade tensions with the United States in 2025, with the trends being visible particularly in Asia.

Speaking at a conference in September, Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg said the “administration has been very helpful” in supporting sales campaigns, and that the company had benefited from Trump’s aggressive push to increase American exports. He further stressed that demand for new aircraft was also driving sales, as the aircraft maker is trying to stage a comeback after fighting safety and quality-related challenges, especially with the 737 MAX crashes, which saw two deadly crashes in 2018–2019, followed by a 2024 door panel blowout.

Also, the venture faced other setbacks in 2024, in the form of supply chain disruptions and worker protests, with both factors contributing to crippling the production activities. Boeing’s aircraft deliveries plunged by a third on a year-on-year basis. The company managed just 348 jetliner deliveries in 2024 compared to 528 in 2023, less than half of Airbus’s 766 deliveries during the same period. This translated into staggering financial losses of USD 11.8 billion in 2024 alone, pushing total losses since 2019 past the USD 35 billion mark.

The company also faced regulatory probes, lawsuits related to manufacturing defects, safety failures, and whistleblower retaliation. It had to pay USD 1.1 billion to avoid prosecution over the 2018-19 crashes that killed 346 people. While Kelly Ortberg has been successful in changing the business’ fortunes to some extent (as he succeeded David Calhoun amid numerous safety scandals), by overhauling its safety protocols through workforce retraining, whistleblower protections, and factory floor quality interventions, challenge still awaits Boeing as its 777X (including 777-9 & -8) widebody project faces significant delays, with first aircraft delivery now pushed to 2027. This setback has so far cost the planemaker nearly USD 5 billion in charges, driven by prolonged FAA certification, technical issues like engine software, supply chain problems, and quality control.

However, Guillaume Faury’s admission now means that the traditional Boeing vs Airbus rivalry is back, at least in the near term. While Airbus orders have lagged for months, Faury’s comments confirm a probable change in the ranking for new business in 2025. Despite Boeing taking an order book lead, Airbus is expected to retain its title as the world’s largest jet manufacturer.

Asked about reports of a large pending order from China, Guillaume Faury said he did not expect an imminent new order for hundreds of jets but spoke of clearances for previous orders. While Beijing has already decided to go ahead with the delivery of 120 previously ordered jets, industry sources told Reuters that the European planemaker was banking on an order for up to 500 jets from China to meet its internal order goals. Beijing is in negotiations with Boeing for a similar package.

Airbus has also renewed efforts to close a deal with AirAsia for some 100 A220S against competition from Brazil’s Embraer.

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The company’s expansion process will begin in 2027, with a new aircraft delivery scheduled each month until 2029 to reach the planned fleet size. In 2025, the airline carried 11 million passengers, and it projects to take the count to 12-13 million passengers in 2026 as the expansion gathers its speed.

Carrier flyadeal, which reported a 35% year-on-year increase in passenger capacity this December, will be inducting new aircraft types, notably the wide-body A330neo, which can carry 420 passengers. The wide-body aircraft, joining flyadeal’s fleet for the first time, will be capable of connecting Saudi airports on long-haul routes spanning from Western Europe to Southeast Asia. This will allow the low-cost venture to significantly expand its international network and develop a transcontinental operational structure to meet rising demand for travel to and from the Kingdom.

Also, flyadeal plans to restructure its operations over the next two years to achieve a balanced mix of domestic and international flights. It will result in a significant shift from the airline’s current operational structure, which relies on an 80% domestic and 20% international flight model.

In 2024, the airline closed its activities with a fleet of 36 aircraft, and in 2025, it added eight more. By this year’s end, flyadeal will have 44 aircraft, with one final delivery expected in the last week of December, Greenway said, while adding that the short-term plan includes addition of four new aircraft in 2026, bringing the fleet to 48, comprising traditional A320s, fuel-efficient A320neos, and A321s with 240 seats.

The Kingdom’s aviation sector recorded significant growth in 2024, with passenger numbers exceeding 128 million, a 15% year-on-year increase. The Kingdom’s General Authority of Civil Aviation reported more than 905,000 flights, up 11% from 2024, while air connectivity grew 16% to over 170 destinations worldwide.

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The start-up aims to utilise large solar arrays in geosynchronous orbit, approximately 22,000 miles above Earth, where satellites synchronise with the planet’s rotation to harvest sunlight. The breakthrough technology will then use infrared lasers to transmit that power to utility-scale solar farms on Earth, allowing these facilities to send power to the grid nearly around the clock.

Building Up The Concept Called Space Solar Energy

The concept of “Space Solar Energy” is taking shape quite nicely in the United States and will likely lead the next-generation clean energy research and development efforts. Among the players taking the lead in the research and development-related efforts in this arena, we have Overview Energy.

As the start-up plan revealed its use of the world’s solar panels as nighttime collectors of power beaming down from space, it also raised USD 20 million, and part of that has now gone toward an airborne demonstration of the start-up’s power-beaming technology. A light aircraft, in November 2025, transmitted power using a laser to a ground receiver over a distance of five kilometres (three miles).

However, Overview Energy will be up against competitors like renewable energy player Aetherflux, which is also pursuing a laser-based approach. Then there are ventures like Emrod (pioneering commercially viable long-range wireless power transfer technology), Orbital Composites (a venture redefining additive manufacturing with advanced composites and robotic automation), and Virtus Solis (which has reportedly designed the world’s first space-based solar power energy generation system) that are developing their versions of microwave-based power transmission, which sends energy wirelessly using a different portion of the electromagnetic spectrum than Aetherflux and Overview.

Betting Big On Microwaves

Microwaves are less sensitive to clouds and humidity than infrared lasers, while the latter can’t transmit in cloudy weather since the suspended water droplets would absorb much of the energy. However, since microwave-based systems can’t reuse existing solar farms, they would have to build their own ground stations.

Also, the ground receivers need to be smaller in shape so that they can keep the costs down. In that case, the energy beams need to be tighter and more powerful to make sure they get caught by the receivers efficiently, without causing collateral damage to birds and aircraft.

While renewable industry players are working to address these challenges, Overview Energy has pitched the reuse of solar farms to mitigate some of those concerns. However, the real deal will be to convince people that energy beams from space are safe and won’t stray off target.

Also, the start-up will have to ensure its laser system is very efficient to prevent a situation where solar energy is converted to infrared light and back again.

The start-up is targeting a 2028 timeline to launch a satellite into low Earth orbit, far below the 36,000 kilometres (22,000 miles) at which it finally intends to operate. The satellite will start sending megawatts’ worth of power from geosynchronous orbit from 2030 onwards.

The innovation will also be facing two more rivals: cheaper grid-scale batteries, which are rewriting the United States’ energy storage rulebook, and nuclear fusion in the long run.

What prevented “space solar energy” from elevating from the concept stage to the commercial one were factors like expensive launches, fragile hardware, and, most importantly, the fact that the technology to beam power safely to Earth wasn’t ready.

However, with the rise of the private space industry, launch costs have dropped more than tenfold, and annual launches have grown massively as well. Mass manufacturing of satellites is now routine. High-efficiency photovoltaics and high-power, high-efficiency lasers have become inexpensive, reliable, and commercially available.

The start-up has set a standard for its action plan of sending megawatts’ worth of power from geosynchronous orbit: transmission must be completely safe for people, wildlife, aircraft, and other satellites, while the whole process should cost less than USD 1 billion, which will make it competitive with its industry rivals.

The start-up also plans to use significantly less land than traditional solar plants with battery storage. The solution has a distributed design, eliminating any single point of failure.

Taking A Pragmatic Path

Overview Energy’s satellites will operate at an altitude of approximately 36,000 kilometres (about 22,000 miles) in geosynchronous orbit, collecting sunlight continuously and transmitting it as low-intensity, invisible infrared light.

Since Overview Energy will be using existing solar projects as its infrared beam receivers, requirements such as new land, construction, and years-long waits for interconnection will be eliminated. The start-up’s satellites will be the first moving power plants, directing energy across regions in seconds and across continents in minutes.

This will lead to a situation where solar projects will be generating revenue during 65%-75% of operational hours, without making their assets sit idle. Utilities will be bypassing congested corridors and drawing on infinite energy reserves above the atmosphere. Households will see lower electricity costs, as satellites will be blunting the peaks that drive price spikes.

Off-takers like data centres will have access to massive energy capacity, which will help them come online in days instead of years.

The business is currently busy solving problems such as sourcing cost-efficient materials, precise tracking, and deployable architecture. The whole operational architecture is being tested and validated from lab to aircraft to orbit. Each phase is demonstrating the same core technology that will operate in space, focusing on real-world constraints, while helping the start-up inch toward its cost targets.

Airborne Demo Bringing The Concept To Reality

In November 2025, the start-up achieved a world first in power beaming, as it transmitted power from a moving aeroplane to solar panels on the ground, covering a distance of more than 5,000 metres in the process.

Overview Energy’s team installed laser and optical systems on a Cessna Caravan and flew at an altitude of over 5,000 m (16,500 ft). On the ground, it installed a receiver of standard solar panels, the same kind used in utility-scale projects or homes.

As the aircraft flew overhead, the system identified the receiver, locked onto it, and delivered power through an eye-safe beam. The panels convert that light into electricity in the same way they convert sunlight.

The whole experiment validated the performance of Overview Energy’s core technical pieces that will realise the concept of “Space Solar Energy.” The proof-of-concept phase has also been completed with the airborne technology demonstration. It will now be followed by a pilot low Earth orbit (LEO) mission in 2028 that will demonstrate the full system’s performance in space. The final step will be the Overview Energy’s geosynchronous orbit (GEO) satellites taking over the proceedings in 2029–2030, where they will see the sun 99% of the time.

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The expansion supports Oman’s long-term aviation strategy, which aims to raise the sector’s GDP contribution from 159 million Omani rials (USD 413 million) in 2018 to 890 million rials by 2030, a more than sixfold increase. The strategy also targets handling 40 million passengers annually by 2030, double the levels recorded in 2019.

“The authority has focused on maximising the benefits of Oman’s position as a regional and global logistics hub, leveraging its strategic geographic location on international air routes. This is achieved through the development of Omani airports as key hubs for air connectivity and the transport of goods and passengers, facilitating domestic connections and encouraging tourism between the governorates,” the ONA reported.

The development comes amid the good news of the Sultanate’s aviation sector experiencing a remarkable revenue surge. In 2024, the Civil Aviation Authority of Oman (CAA) reported a staggering 43% increase in revenue, reaching a total of RO 105.31 million compared to 2023’s RO 73.39 million.

Oman has continued to implement a broader strategy to establish itself as a regional aviation hub, leveraging its geographic location and world-class infrastructure.

According to the analysts, the latest revenue numbers will have far-reaching implications, strengthening the Sultanate’s position in global tourism, cargo logistics, and international investment.

The number of aircraft movements in Omani airspace surged by 14% in 2024, marking over 530,300 aircraft movements compared to 465,100 in 2023. Apart from expanding its network by establishing new air routes, which have connected the Gulf nation to major cities in Asia, Europe, and Africa, there has been a parallel rise in domestic flights and routes between Oman’s major cities, through a network of smaller regional airports.

The Oman Civil Aviation Authority has also facilitated partnerships with both full-service and low-cost carriers, increasing the volume of tourists and business travellers flying into the Sultanate.

The nation is also positioning itself as a regional logistics and cargo hub, capitalising on its strategic location between Europe, Africa, and Asia. The expansion of cargo services is contributing significantly to the increase in aviation sector-related revenue flow.

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