Heatwaves, flash floods, and sudden infrastructure failures are rapidly becoming more than just weather events—they’re disrupting the backbone of global aviation. From European runways buckling under scorching temperatures to flights redirected and delayed en masse, the industry is facing disruptions of unprecedented scale and frequency.
“The European continent is actually heating twice the rate of the global average. It’s becoming more and more of an issue,” states ZEERO Group CEO Nico Nicholas, pointing to significant climate-driven instability. “These are assets—the aircraft—that rely on being used as much as possible. But if the asset ends up in the wrong place because an airport has been closed because of weather disruption, it kicks off rerouting, additional costs and scheduling chaos.”
His description paints a stark picture: planes idling on tarmacs, alternative flight plans being hastily drawn, and cascading operational delays eroding airline revenue and passenger trust alike. These aren’t isolated incidents. Nicholas recalls how “heat stresses can do more than just melt runways—look at the Spanish power outage at the end of April. Excessive heat heated up electricity cables, they couldn’t carry energy, and a substation blew near Granada.” The result? A sudden standstill—not just for power, but for transportation channels that depend on it.
Echoes of similar breakdowns have rippled across continents: Dubai’s flash floods have flooded taxiways, while Hurricane-driven Gulf storms threaten US – low-cost carriers, which rely on fast turnarounds, and many are experiencing huge losses due to weather disrupting their services – rerouting, hasn’t been built that into their cost model,” Nicholas warns. It’s a disruption cycle that feeds itself—cost increases lead to margin pressures, which pressure airlines to cut corners, potentially diminishing service quality and even safety.
Nicholas concludes the segment with a sobering truth: “These events are paralysing all types of aviation in such a big way”, underscoring how ill-equipped the aviation sector is to face these growing threats.
READ MORE: Industry resilience through diversity, sustainability and strategic insight
Near-term solution
Amid these challenges, the most immediate remedy might lie not solely in technology or policy—but in fuel. According to Nicholas, only sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs), especially biofuels, offer the speed, scope and scalability required to mitigate emissions—and operational risks—without destabilising the fragile aviation ecosystem.
“If you use small electric aircraft for short trips, you have issues if airports don’t have enough electricity to recharge them,” he warns. “Unless those aircrafts have swap-out batteries—which aren’t efficient—you hit delays.” Hydrogen is similarly warned off: initially promising, but underpowered in practical terms. “The only thing I can really see is investing in sustainable fuels.”
Yet not all SAFs are created equal. Nicholas is candid: “Synthetic aviation fuels produced by direct air carbon capture… is the biggest farce in the world, because it uses so much energy. You’re pushing massive amounts of air through chemicals just to extract carbon. That energy is being misused.”
He urges a whole-supply-chain perspective.
“You can’t say, ‘We’ve got zero-emission hydrogen’ if the power used comes from an overloaded grid. We’d end up increasing emissions somewhere else.” Similarly, questionable carbon credits feel like smoke and mirrors. “We should really be trying to decarbonise. It’s not about trading guilt.”
The message echoes with urgency: airlines, fossil fuel companies, governments, passengers—they all must participate. “Aviation works on very slim margins,” he reminds. “They shouldn’t be left to do it themselves. Everybody who uses it should be responsible.”
A radical rethink
Zeero is pushing the envelope further by transforming urban and agricultural refuse—like sewage—into sustainable fuel on a large scale. Using hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL), they superheat waste to create a near-total fossil crude analogue with 81 percent lower emissions.
“We take raw sewage, pump it through a super high-pressure chamber at super high heat. Fifteen minutes later you get bio-crude oil out,” Nicholas explains. “It’s almost identical to fossil crude—biodegradable—but can be put through a standard refinery, creating aviation fuel, biodiesel, gasoline and heavy fuels, all 81 percent lower in emissions.”
In his view, this is not only a green solution—but a practical one. “It doesn’t need farmland, it works every day regardless of weather, and you can bolt it onto a city to produce millions of litres per day.”
“A city the size of Miami could produce around 60 million litres a year. Add that across multiple locations, and the sums come up.”
The ripple effects are vast: less pressure on agricultural land, lower carbon emissions, better waste management, and a scalable alternative to limited feedstock sources like cooking oil. “Used cooking oils—I almost laugh when I hear about that,” Nicholas chuckles. “How many chips are we all supposed to eat? You also have the collection and transport issues that increases the price, however the truth is that we need multiple solutions, but they have to be scalable”
Financing the future
Tech alone isn’t enough—financing models must evolve to support massive infrastructure investment. Nicholas outlines a shared-ownership, fuel-offtake model where collaborators can share both risk and reward.
“A large plant costs around US$200 million,” he says. “If you go to a bank you need collateral. So, we use fuel-offtake deals—marine, aviation, rail—to give security. That gets financiers on board. Then collaborative contributors help erode debt quickly.”
The ownership model is innovative too: contributors become part-owners. “It’s not just people paying in—it’s sharing ownership of the subsidiary. That transparency aligns incentives: if we gain, they gain.”
He faults the status quo for relying on limited feeds or risky carbon schemes. By contrast, Zeero offers a more holistic, transparent, and scalable model.
And if SAF won’t scale without fossil-fuel companies, Zeero is ready to collaborate. “We need the collaboration with fuel companies to help get our small quantities of fuel put through refineries at the right price. We’re having healthy conversations—IATA knows this. If oil companies refuse, airlines can apply pressure. But ideally, no one should have to be forced.”
Standards, accountability, and timelines
In his closing argument, Nicholas emphasises that wider systemic reform—and realistic timelines—are essential to meet net-zero targets.
“Aviation is more complex than rail. You don’t have the liberty of electric planes,” he says, noting air freight faces tougher regulatory and technical hurdles. Still, he remains optimistic that a blend of SAF, hydrogen, cooking oils, and other solutions will get the job done. Flexibility is key.
Yet unclear metrics are holding progress back. “There’s no standardised carbon calculator. Everyone uses different methodologies. If you’re going to achieve a goal, you need standards—and they must be free, because not everyone can pay for expensive tools.”
In his final critique, he warns against misallocated subsidies. “UK gov’t put over £20 billion into direct air carbon capture. I feel sorry for them—they’ve been tricked. Money could’ve gone into fixing sewage systems and producing viable fuels.”
He calls for “banking, equity, grants, gov’t support… closely with private sector… quadruple, blended funding.” Only then, he believes, will aviation be ready to meet climate targets realistically.
Nicholas ends on a determined note: “Our goal isn’t perfection. It’s accountability for every link in the chain. If we gain, we all gain—and that’s how we’ll get this done.”
