The Jet Fuel Crisis: What’s next for aviation?
Outrage + Optimism: The Climate Podcast
Persephonica
4.7 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 14 May 2026
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Are flights across the world about to be grounded? Is a terrible war about to create an unlikely good news story for the climate? As conflict in the Middle East threatens the Strait of Hormuz, jet fuel shortages are forcing aviation to confront a structural vulnerability it has spent decades avoiding.
This week, Tom Rivett-Carnac, Christiana Figueres and Paul Dickinson examine what the shortage reveals: aviation's near-total dependence on fossil fuels, the structural reasons it has proved so hard to break, and whether it’s ever going to be possible to fix.
They speak with Karel Bockstael and Roxanne van Rijn, former aviation insiders who co-founded Call Aviation to Action, a movement designed to reach the industry’s senior leaders and push for much-needed change. They explain why kerosene remains the only viable option for long-haul flight, how thin margins trap airlines into opposing the very regulation they need, and why this fuel shock may be the scarcity event that finally forces the model to shift.
Could this crisis become aviation’s turning point? And in a world where up to 80% of people have never set foot on a plane - and 1% account for half of all aviation emissions - what would a truly fair future for flight actually look like?
Learn More:
✈️ Explore Call Aviation to Action - the movement co-founded by Karel and Roxanne and others, pushing for industry-wide transformation from within
📊 Read the UK Climate Change Committee’s aviation analysis, and understand why aviation is on course to become the UK’s single largest emitting sector by 2040
⛽ Get up to date on IEA data on global oil and jet fuel markets, including what the Strait of Hormuz disruption means for aviation fuel supply
🌿 Learn more about Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) via IATA: what it is, why it currently accounts for less than 1% of aviation fuel use, and what scaling it would require
💸 Pay the true price of your next flight via the Future Friendly Fund’s calculator, or check your CO₂ estimate on Google Flights.
Check out Bumprints for practical tips or Travel Alternative, Roxanne’s recently launched platform highlighting alternatives to flying
🎤 Leave us your voice notes and questions for upcoming episodes on SpeakPipe
Join the conversation:
Instagram @outrageoptimism LinkedIn @outrageoptimism
Or get in touch with us via this form.
Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks
Edited by: Miles Martignoni
Planning: Caitlin Hanrahan
Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford
This is a Persephonica production for Global Optimism and is part of the Acast Creator Network.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Outrage and Optimism. I'm Tom Rivikarnik. I'm Cristiana Figueres. |
| 0:06.6 | And I'm Paul Dickinson. This week, as war in the Middle East drains the world's jet fuel reserves, |
| 0:11.8 | we ask what the crisis reveals about aviation's fossil fuel problem and what it would take to actually fix it. |
| 0:17.6 | Thanks for being here. So listeners will be well aware. We know we don't |
| 0:23.3 | break news on outrage and optimism. We comment it and help you understand it. But listeners will be |
| 0:27.3 | aware that jet fuel is apparently running out. There is a terrible war in the Middle East, |
| 0:31.7 | of course, around the Strait of Hormuz that everybody now understands in great detail is |
| 0:36.4 | where a quarter of the world's oil and gas |
| 0:38.8 | comes through. And that includes aviation fuel. And we've seen various different headlines |
| 0:43.3 | in Europe and around the world and very much in Asia suggesting that we are getting to the |
| 0:47.9 | point of crisis in kerosene and jet fuel that is going to have an impact on the ability of people |
| 0:53.3 | to fly. Now, which |
| 0:54.6 | of you would like to kick off by commenting on this issue? I'm happy to share my ignorance with |
| 1:00.4 | the listeners because I spent, you know, a couple of hours looking at all the media about. |
| 1:05.4 | That makes you, it makes you an expert. The jet field running out and essentially no one, |
| 1:09.3 | no one is really calling it. I mean, you know, you've kind of got two options. One is that ships are sort of beginning to dribble through and it's a big damp squib and nothing's going to happen. And that's what quite a lot of airlines are saying. And then you've got other people saying the amount of demand destruction required could mean, you know, massive reductions in airlines. |
| 1:29.4 | We've heard of millions of seats being cancelled. |
| 1:32.0 | Lufthansa cancelling 20,000 flights. |
| 1:34.1 | So there's clearly stuff going on. |
| 1:36.8 | But I think that maybe what's most important here and what should give us pause |
| 1:40.6 | and why I'm really glad that we're doing this episode. It's just the absolutely |
| 1:44.3 | crazy amounts of energy in airlines. Now, listen to this one from the EU. Aviation generates |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in 6 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Persephonica, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Persephonica and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.