Aoife O'Sullivan: Expert Aviation Lawyer Reveals All

Hi, I'm Steve Varsano with The Jet Business in London, and we're here today to start with episode 1 of an interview about the aviation industry. And today I have with me Aoife O'Sullivan from the Air Law Firm. She's one of the most notorious aviation experts in the legal system, and not only in the UK, but all around the world in the commercial and in the corporate aviation world. So today we're going to talk to Ethan, how somebody gets actually started in that kind of a business. Nice to see you.

Thanks, Steve. Nice to be here.

Appreciate you, uh, you starting our new episode series here. But, uh, I've always admired your ability in this industry, who is, um, a sea of male-dominated lawyers, and, uh, to be really stepping out of that whole, um mold and, and really standing out way above most of them. Uh, I'm curious, how did you actually get into not just the legal system, but how did you really start and get fascinated by the aviation system? Maybe just give me a little bit of background on how you started and how you got into aviation.

Um, I mean, how did I get into, how did I get into the legal system was actually my father. I wanted to buy a horse and he told me if I became a lawyer, I kid you not, if I became a lawyer, I could buy my own. I actually started out in London in M&A in Clifford Chance, so I did that for a long, very, very long hours, and then I went off to do funds work in Cayman Islands for a couple of years, and when I came back, one of the agents I was talking to, I was looking to go back into Magic Circle, and she said, look, I think you should meet these people, I think you'd like them. And it was a startup firm, Bates Partners, and I literally joined within the first 3 weeks. And we just developed that firm into, I think by the end we had about 60 lawyers, 5 offices, etc., and then merged it in 2013. But how we came about to be the Ayr Law Firm is John Krasnowski, who's my partner, And I just decided to take it back to boutique because it's just easier to be flexible, and I think this industry really needs that flexibility. You need to be able to give— if they want fixed fees, you must give them fixed fees. If they want you to show up at a show in Dubai, you show up at a show in Dubai. And that's a little bit more difficult if you're billing every 6 minutes, you know, that kind of thing. So it's, it's just a different mindset.

Would, um, I mean I was curious, what kind of, what would you say is a profile of your typical client?

You know, somebody asked me that recently. We probably, I would say 95 on the corporate jet side. So we do both commercial airline work and corporate jets. On the corporate jet side, and I mean this quite sincerely, predominantly business people. We tend to sit more on the owners and buyers sellers of jets rather than on the financier side. And that was actually a conscious decision because there were more— there was more competition in the legal field, but they were all pretty much concentrating on working for the big banks. So we figured, right, we'll go the other side. And that must be, what, 18, 20 years ago now. So a lot of the work now comes in from referrals from these people. 'You know, we've used her before, she did a great job, you should use her as well.' So most of it is referral work.

And you think, what percentage is commercial airlines versus corporations?

Personally, I don't do much commercial myself at all. I much prefer the corporate jet world. It's very challenging. I mean, you know this as well as me. The deals are complicated and can be complicated. For some reason in the last 5 years, they seem to be becoming even more and more complicated. And that, for a lawyer, you know, you kind of thrive off the complication and sorting out the problems and, you know, just making the transactions happen. On the litigation side of the firm, there's probably— they are more predominantly on the commercial airline side.

You think I would think you're probably dealing more with the in-house counsel of these individuals.

No, no, no.

So you deal directly with the principals, the CEOs of the company?

And I deal directly with them. You do, obviously you deal a lot with family offices, in-house counsel, CFOs quite a lot, but every single transaction you are at one point or another dealing with whether it's a high net worth or dealing with the CEO, the chairman, whoever it is. And I think I'd be interested in your perception of it, but I think it's because it's such a personal acquisition and in the sense of it is an extension of the office to all of these corporates and it is going to save them time and it is going to make a huge difference to their working life. So they do take a personal interest in it and they take a personal interest in the interiors. But actually, I mean, I had a case one time, we were acting for one of the sports guys, and he came on the call. We were talking about VAT, and he came on the call. The call went on for about 45 minutes. He was asking questions. He was, you know, can you explain to me why can't I do it this way? Why can I do that way? What can I do? 'How do you treat it for tax?' And I explained it all, and, you know, this is a business tool, same as the plumber's van concept. So there is— it is slightly fascinating, and I think that that's what makes it so interesting. So, you know, should a lawyer, should a young female lawyer look at joining this industry? 100%. You'll love it.

I mean, I tell you, there's, you know, besides you, there are few in when we deal with American companies, firm that use, that has all women lawyers. And I actually prefer, I'm probably gonna get shot now, hearing from the male lawyers, but I just think the way they think is just much more strategic. They think, you know, in front of your nose, not at your nose, and they're just more strategic in their thinking. So, but it's amazing because it is such a male-dominated industry, like most industries I know. But, you know, to really be able to deal with the who's who in this business, because obviously the people who are controlling these or acquiring airplanes are the heads of major corporations. These are the most successful, smartest, most cunning, devious, strategic thinking kind of individuals around the world and from every country, from every industry. And you know, to have to sit there and negotiate with them, and they have teams of people around them that are, you know, against you. It's a hell of a challenge. And I'm not sure if being a woman helps or hurts, or maybe they tone down their aggression when they're talking to you, or I'm not sure. But I know from a standpoint when we're dealing with people, everybody always wonders, how is it dealing with these uber-successful people or high-net-worth people or corporate executives or politicians or or celebrities, and it's— everyone is different, but how you talk to them, how you understand them, how you find out their problems and solve the problem is so key rather than just trying to look at it from your side. But I don't know from a legal standpoint how it is different because I'm sure you get much more involved than just negotiating legal points. You're trying to get into their head and explain it.

Absolutely. We tend to project manage the deal as much as do the contracts. So, you know, you start with the letter of intent, and literally we're on the deal right through until it's entered into service. But in terms of— I have to say that in the aviation industry, it's easier now that I'm older. I think probably young female coming into the industry, it was definitely a lot more difficult, but that was, you know, quite a while ago now. But I had come from M&A, and I think my experience of M&A, and albeit I was a lot younger, was a lot more like that. Very difficult. There was a lot of patting on the head, and, you know, I was asked to make the coffee in one of the meetings one time. Yeah, that still sticks with me. But I think in aviation, I don't know, is it the novelty? You know, when I first started out There weren't, I don't think there were any female aviation lawyers. But, you know, it's an advantage to some degree because you are a novelty and it's like, you know, they're so used to a sea of male domination that it's, you know, it's new. I think part of the success though is, you know, I'm just, I'm here to do a job. I have a very finite job. 'You're very busy, you know, you're going to give me whatever, 10, 15 minutes of your time because you need to move on to your next meetings, etc.' I know that, so we get straight down to it, and I think probably I do suffer from being a bit of a straight talker, so, you know, we get straight into it, we get it dealt with, and then we move on. Have there been challenges along the way? Yes, probably the worst I've had is from male lawyers, actually, not from the chairman or the CEOs.

Ego.

Yeah, I don't know what it is.

A professional ego or just challenged by a woman?

I think, yeah, I think, you know, who is this? And, you know, how dare she have an opinion? Some brokers, not you ever, actually, you never did. But certainly some of the brokers and, you know, even trying to publicly denounce, you know, on stage, you know, at conferences, that kind of thing.

I mean, listen, you, you know, not because we're sitting here doing this together, but I mean, you're one of the most intelligent, knowledgeable person in this, in this space, seriously. And, and, you know, a lot of the brokers, um, obviously want to get a deal done and cut, you know, do shortcuts and whatever like that. And, um, and if you're challenging them and you're, you're giving them another hurdle to step over You know, they're going to, you know, get their, you know, their hair up and sort of protect and start pushing back. So I understand where they're coming from. But, you know, if you have the clear, you know, legal reason that it's going to be a big problem rather than just do it because, you know, like some lawyers are evidently just doing stuff just to build their fees and build problems that really don't have anything to do with the end result. And, you know, just cutting to the chase and trying to get a deal done in the most cleanest efficient way is obviously the way we're trying to do it as a broker, but some lawyers work opposite than that and they're trying to build a workload rather than get the deal to the end game.

Yeah, I think there is a lot of that about, and, you know, I have spent a lot of time kicking back and saying, you know, stop bashing the lawyers. And, you know, we all are here, I'm a transactional lawyer, I want to get the deal done as much as the next guy. And then I find myself up against one of those type of lawyers, and I'm like, all right, so this is what they're all talking about. It is a pain, it is unnecessary, it is incredibly frustrating. I mean, I had a lawyer one time debating for nearly 45 minutes on the wording of a boilerplate clause. Down towards the bottom of the contract, and there was no real legal reasoning behind what he was doing. He was just fighting for it. And in the end, but, you know, every time I said, look, if we just put this word in, it solves it. You get what you need, I get what I need. Let's call it a day. And then he would keep coming back to it and keep opening it up again. And in the end, I was, you know, I don't understand what you're trying to do here, but it's not working.

You know, one of those ego issues. My mind's made up. Don't confuse me with the facts.

Yeah. But I'd be interested if you, as a broker though, you know, on that concept, because you very kindly do value lawyers and do value lawyers who know what they're doing. Is your experience that, you know, would you— somebody asked me yesterday when I was pitching for a new client and he asked me, have I ever come across a situation where people are buying these big assets without lawyers? And I said, well, to be honest, not really, because by the time they come to us, they're either hiring us to do the acquisition or they're hiring us because there has been a mess made and we need to help fix it. What's your experience?

We, we, we get a lot of problems where people want to use their in-house counsel, which is usually like a real estate kind of person. And we push back so hard on that because it is a sure, sure strategy for disaster. Because they have to, spent so much time getting themselves up on knowledge of the space and about the language and about what is needed and not needed, then they find themselves actually engaging other specialized law firms to learn things for them. It takes so much longer, costs so much more, and you don't end up with a cleaner result. So we always try to recommend a specific aviation transactional expert. It just makes the transaction easier, and it's much safer for the client. What do you think about AI? You know, with all the, you know, whether it's ChatGPT or anything, everything's about AI today. Do you think there's some way that's going to change in transactional, in the legal system?

I think there, yeah, I think it, I think, I mean, I've certainly started looking at it far more seriously. It frightens me, Steve, to to be perfectly honest. Not as a lawyer, just in general. I don't know. I mean, I have young sons, they're both very excited about it. I look at it as, you know, God, what are we bringing in here? It's this fear of the unknown more than anything. But in terms of from a lawyer's perspective, will it replace lawyers? I don't think so. I mean, it's a bit like the argument of 'Why can't we all just use precedent purchase agreements?' And, you know, then I say to that, 'Carry on, take a precedent,' but then you don't really value what the lawyer is actually doing on the transaction. You know, there is no such thing as a cookie-cutter purchase agreement. I mean, you know that as well as I do. You're typically dealing with 6 or 7 different legal jurisdictions around the world. You're trying to manage the expectations of the seller, manage the expectations of the buyer. You're dealing with banks on both sides. You can't feed that into a computer because, you know, some of what we do is, in the sense of managing expectations, it's trying to get them to understand each other. And I mean, you— this is very much the broker world, but I see it as well— is, you know, I had a two different, completely different jurisdictions on a transaction. And, you know, they just didn't want to understand each other. So we ended up just splitting them apart and just saying, right, do you still want to sell to him? Yes. Do you still want to buy from him? Yes, I do. Okay, just let me do this bit in the middle. And I'll deal with that problem. Yeah. And that's what— but I mean, this is more your area than mine, but That's what you're doing is you're bringing a human element to a very human transaction. Will we be replaced in terms of writing articles or producing precedent documents? Maybe, maybe. I don't think there's anything bad by that, to be honest.

No, it's probably, I mean, I'm not sure if the right percentage, you could tell me, the part that's pretty similar, most contracts, confidentiality, the warranties, all this kind of stuff. You know, that's maybe it's 50%, 60%, 70%, I don't know, and that stuff is pretty easy to just copy and paste. Where there's the 30%, which is really the guts of every agreement, and that is so specific, and one word, as we all know, I mean, you know, lawyers love changing, you know, "a" to "the" or, you know, it's something like that. Or it, and one word could change a contract completely.

Exactly.

So, you know, I don't know if AI will ever get to that point where, you know, you get— because if in fact AI produced the contract and there's litigation at the end, who is at fault?

Exactly. Well, yeah, that's a great point. Exactly.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, you signed it. Well, you're at fault because you signed it. Well, yeah, you're using AI.

I suppose you'd still litigate on the back of the contract. But yeah, it's a very good point.

And then who's the judge going to be?

What about in the broker world though? Do you think it's an issue?

Well, I don't know how, you know, I mean, I can see how AI can work in my business just from a standpoint of, you know, research and things like that and making our systems more efficient because we have to call so many people around the world. It would be great to have a profile on every single one of them and decide who is the best one to talk to. So yeah, there is some way to incorporate AI into our industry. You have to have a staff in order to input all that stuff into your database. So, you know, we're starting to do that now, but it's, you know, it's such a—

I mean, it's a whole new world.

It's a whole new world. And, you know, you feel older, but I feel old, and I'm trying to stay relevant in our industry. And I think, you know, we have to pay attention to this AI because, you know, that's where the world's going. And just ignore it is just going to make yourself become into a caveman era.

Yeah, you have to keep up with them. But, you know, that's half of the enjoyment of this industry is it's not just a challenge of getting the transactions done, dealing with the 6 jurisdictions, you know, getting everybody to the one place, the, you know, the one 10-minute phone call that closes the whole transaction. And, you know, you're herding cats for 4 to 6 weeks doing that. But that's half the fun. The other side of it is, you know, working with people. It's a very human industry, and there are some fantastic characters in the industry.

Yeah, I know. Sometimes I'm wondering if they're really human or not. I mean, they're superhuman. I'm not saying they're subhuman, they're superhuman. I mean, because some of these people, the way they actually know what you're going to say, and they know how to play this chessboard, you know, much better than we do. I mean, you know, I'm old, I'm experienced, but these people are so experienced in other industries and they deal with people in different ways. And the whole business is really how do you deal with people, how you, you know, solve their problems, how you negotiate, how you see what their needs are. And if it's just cut and dry, you know, hey, buy this, this is the price, it doesn't work that way anymore. You know, some people do start in that direction, but I mean, how you have that relationship with the client, how much they respect you and your intelligence, it's a big part of this whole negotiation process.

Yeah, I think there is a general assumption you must be good at your job. You're not going to get the attention of any of these people.

And these people, our clients, all surround themselves with some super smart people, and their sole job is to make themselves look good and us look bad.

Yeah.

So you're always, you know, have this tug of war, you know, don't try making me look stupid.

Funny, we did see that a lot over the years, and we started embracing it and just going, you know what, I'm going to help you look good. And you came to a couple of them. We did this kind of a closed shop. How about we just teach you what you need to know about the acquisition process, and who's an operator, and why is that relevant, and how do you access finance, and what are the financiers looking for, and what is the security that you're giving over the asset, and should you give a personal guarantee, should you not give a personal guarantee, all of that. And it was very helpful because instead of, you know, the exactly as you were saying, let's just get these people out of the way, she's just bloody lawyer and she's annoying. Now they're in, you know, they're calling you anytime, just, you know, remember that conference we did or remember that seminar we did, can you just remind me again why is the operator important, etc., etc. So I think embracing it and, you know, bringing them into our world, I wouldn't be afraid of that because you need to be doing this on a daily basis to really understand where the issues are and to be able to The reason, as a lawyer particularly, you need to understand the issues is because you need to be able to stop them becoming an issue. So you need to be 5, 6 steps ahead of a problem and say, well, I wouldn't do it that way. I wouldn't send the aircraft to pre-purchase inspection there because it's going to cause a massive tax problem that we're not going to be able to fix. The buyer is going to have a big issue with that. If, you know, these buyers are entitled to reclaim VAT, for example, on business use, same way you do with any business asset. They can't on personal use. And, you know, a lot of what the structuring then gets into is, well, are we creating another massive tax problem that doesn't need to be there just because of the physical location? So a lot of it is preempting that. And again, you know, that's And that's the fun bit.

Yeah, I think one thing I love about the business is dealing with these top-level people. It keeps us alert, keeps us current, keeps us relevant.

And they're fascinating stories.

Yeah, I mean, these are, you know, the super people of the world. And so, you know, they educate me every day. I'm learning something about business, about their business, about the sector, about negotiating, about people. I mean, you know, dealing with the who's who in the world. It just makes us a better person, and it's a privilege to meet them.

I mean, some of them— I had one client who sticks out, is we used to talk for hours. He was an older gentleman, and he was buying aircraft to do some charitable work basically with the aircraft. So, you know, a lot of the discussions were, well, how are you going to do it, and how are we going to crew it, and how are we going to get it operated, and all that. And that would last probably 20 minutes. And then I started asking him, you know, tell me a bit more about the work you're going to do. And you get into these fantastic conversations, and I love it. I love all of that side of it because you learn exactly as you're saying, you learn so much from these people. I mean, how did you get from that little town in Southeast Asia to where you are now? And, you know, how did you do it? Well, I didn't stop working, basically, and I still don't stop working.

Everybody thinks, you know, oh, this person made a a huge overnight success, but they don't realize that they had thousands and thousands of nights before that one overnight success.

Exactly.

You know, they hear their stories, you're right, it just, you know, they might be great in the media and in the persona, they're tough and they're aggressive, but when you hear their story, you realize, wow, you know, they really came from nothing.

They took a lot to get here.

And you respect them so much more. And also gives you an idea of how to navigate you know, the world. I mean, it's been a fun, you know, time for me in this industry.

So how did you start in the industry? How did this all come about for you?

Well, I went to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and I remember it very, very well because I had to borrow so much money to get through the school. And when I finally finished university, I got a job at the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, GAMA. It's your lobbying group trade association in Washington, D.C. And I got the position as the— I was running their statistics and forecasting committee and their airport airways committee. So I was basically— I mean, at the time I was 20, 21, 22 years old. And walking through the halls of Congress and Senate and trying to work with congressmen and senators and legislative aides and how to make sure the industry wasn't attacked negatively by some kind of law that would hurt our industry. And it was, um, it was a great job from an ego standpoint. It was, you know, really, I mean, you're sitting in presentations with presidents, with congressmen, senators, heads of all the major aircraft manufacturers. It was a really unbelievable, fascinating spot to be. However, the money was terrible and I worked at nighttime in a nightclub that my roommate owned at the time and one night when somebody was coming in the nightclub that I used to see there once in a while, he had a Learjet on his tie pin when people used to wear ties and tie pins. And I said, how come you have a jet on your tie? He said, I sell jets. You sell jets? What do you mean you sell jets? Yeah, I sell jets. And he used to come in and get drunk, you know, sometimes in the old days when you used to have actual checks, commission checks and paychecks. He used to come in and say, hey, look, Steve, look, I sold another plane today and show me a check for X thousands and then this one for thousands. And like, okay, after a few months, I'm like, Where are you working? I want to come get a job there. No, no, no, we're not hiring anybody. And I eventually convinced him to let me meet his boss, and I convinced the boss to hire me for free to learn how to sell airplanes. And I worked there for free for 8 months. I got a job as a waiter at night to pay my rent. And then finally after 8 months I sold my first airplane. I don't know, I started, I think I was 22 years old.

What a great story. I mean, there's a lot of— we were talking about this recently in the industry association, is, you know, that everybody has a story of, but it nearly is like everybody fell into this industry. I mean, what's great about the jet business doing this kind of thing is you're bringing more of the information surrounding the industry to a wider audience. So, you know, a lot of what we do is We tend to present to ourselves, you know, we tend to keep talking about issues, but we're talking to the industry. Fantastic forum like this to talk to people outside the industry and say, you know, you don't need to wait till you happen upon it. You know, there is a great industry here and, you know, we're all looking for people.

Listen, when I was 14 years old, you know, a friend of mine, his older brother was going for flying lessons and he said, you want to come for a ride? That's how my first introduction to it. But really, when you think about it, you know, the youth of today, you know, how can they ever be exposed to flying? I mean, it's not a normal kind of thing. It's not like driving a car, see cars driving up and down the street. But, you know, a lot of the youth today, you know, they sit at airports, they watch the airplanes go up and down. I mean, when you're little kids, you know, you're playing with airplanes, you're playing with, you know, construction vehicles, you're playing, you know, dolls, whatever. But nobody really has that, that that ability or luxury of going and feeling and touching an airplane. It's hard to break in. It's hard to get anybody introduced to it. So if some way through this media, you know, you can get people to just even have an idea of what it's like.

Just know where to go.

Yeah, just know where to go or just what it's about. It would be fantastic. I mean, I love this industry. It's become part of my fabric of my life.

And it's true because the commercial airline side, that tends to be what everybody sees. So, you know, a lot of the people that we get into our, the corporate jet side of the industry kind of came out of commercial, but had never, I mean, we did a presentation up in Cranfield a couple of months ago with EBAA, and these are all people who are doing, I think it was BSc in aircraft management, so they're already knowledgeable on the aviation industry. But they knew nothing about the corporate jet side. And we were thinking, what a shame. So now what we're doing is going out to these different universities and saying, can we just talk to you about this side of the industry? Because we need your brain, we need your commitment, we need you to help us do the next or take on the next stage. It's a very fast-moving industry and we, you know, we need, we need you. Yeah, we don't want to wait till you fall into it in 5 years' time.

Exactly. And also people's perception of what the industry is is jilted. It's, you know, it's really by, you know, a lot of the media just looks at it from a glass half empty kind of way. And this industry does so much for the world economy and for livelihood of people. And nobody really wants that.

And jobs.

Yeah, I mean, there's over a million jobs in corporate aviation just in America. I mean, around the world, you know, I'm not sure the exact number, but You know, how many?

I think Europe alone, it's 491,000.

Okay. So you have a million in the US, you got half a million in Europe.

Exactly.

So, you know, it could be, you know, 4 million around the world.

And that's the direct jobs, you know, then you have the maintenance, the, you know, all of the ripple effect of aviation. And I mean, it's like when I first started, got into aviation, and I remember just looking around going, my God, there is so much to this industry. Because you only see the jet, you know, you're off on holiday.

This is not really the real world of corporate aviation. I mean, this is not even 0.0001% of our industry, which is 0.001% of the world. So the real corporate aviation is, you know, people flying around in little single twin-engine airplanes with, you know, 4 seats. They're sitting inside an airplane that's smaller than a minivan. Yeah, it's not this luxurious space and it's not what people perceive to be.

And some of them, it's actually more luxurious to fly on some of the airlines.

But, you know, there's agricultural, there's air ambulances, there's cargo, there's sort of a disaster relief, there's government, there's just so many different avenues to it. And people don't understand. They just look at, you know, the glass half empty, this one piece that they can go poke holes in.

I think it's an easy mantra to latch on to of, you know, oh, it's the fat cats and they're all flying around and destroying the environment. It's— that's not right.

It's just 75% of all the people flying on a corporate aircraft is middle management.

Yeah, that's right.

So it's not— it is definitely not what people think it is. It's sexy to think about. That's what it is. But that's, you know, it's easy to shoot down reality.

Yeah. And I mean, what you and I both know is the reason they're flying around in these smaller corporate aircraft is because they need to get to the places they can't get to with scheduled airlines, for example, or they're breaking new ground in a new country, or quite frankly, they're trying to do 3 meetings in 1 day to try and secure whatever it is that the business needs. They then come back and, you know, they're employing— take the UK, for example, you know, they're employing people, they're paying for real estate in London, they're, you know, they're keeping the economy going, they are paying their taxes. I don't know where anybody got the impression these people don't pay their taxes. They have to, you know, they would go to jail.

Pay a lot more than everybody else.

Well, this is the point, is, you know, you're talking millions and millions in taxes. So it's, it's, I think it would be great to deal with that perception and to just bring back a little bit of balance to it all. Of course there are very wealthy people who buy jets, but it's a tiny, tiny percentage.

There are wealthy people who buy fancy cars.

Yeah, precisely.

Buy fancy houses. That's, that's the way the world rolls. But you know, you can't have all soldiers and no generals. You need generals to create a plan to build intellectual property, to hire people, to which ultimately taxes. Yeah, exactly. It is really— the world has to be— there has to be creation. You can't just be taken. It can't be a world of parasites.

And even, you know, even on the environmental side of it, um, and you know, this, to be honest, Steve, is worth a separate podcast, but it— the— on the environmental side, in actual fact, the reality is the the corporate jet world has been innovating ahead of the airline world. So the winglets on the side of the aircraft, that came from the corporate aviation world, and that has made an enormous impact on reducing emissions. You know, we're all gearing towards net zero. We are very much on course to net zero, and again, an awful lot of that is being done and being led by the corporate aviation industry. SAF? For example. I mean, the take-up on SAF is phenomenal at the moment.

Sustainable aviation fuel.

Yeah, sorry, sustainable fuels. That is going to be easier to integrate and get everybody, including the commercial airlines, into using SAF if we start with the corporate jet. And that's exactly what's happening, is, you know, and then it, it becomes more and more popular. It's not even so much the popularity of it, it's the availability of it. Is the big issue right now.

That's one piece of it we're doing, but I mean, you know, just even the electrification of the industry, it's moving toward that side of it, which is also reducing any kind of carbon issues. And it's gonna even go beyond that. I mean, we're gonna start seeing, you know, these, you know, eVTOLs or flying cars, which is basically passenger-carrying drones. And that's coming. That's probably gonna be one of the next great podcasts we're gonna talk about. But flying cars is going to be here, and people don't understand that it's going to be really like The Jetsons, and it's not in our kids' generation, it's in our generation.

It's happening now.

It will happen in the next, you know, 3 or 4 years. So the industry is far and beyond ahead of any other industry about getting to a net zero.

But this is the point though, Steve, is without the innovators, without the people willing to put the millions behind it, that innovation would never happen. Exactly. And that technological advancement would never happen. So, yes, we would be stuck back in the 1960s with, you know, spewing emissions out the back. We're not stuck back in the 1960s. But this concept of, you know, ban all the jets or, you know, aviation's a massive contributor to global emissions. It's not.

They're all innovators.

But even if you take it that there is an element of the environmental damage. We're taking it very seriously as an industry, but also we've been doing something about it for the last 10, 15 years. And I think that that's where this industry has let itself down, is we just sit there and we wait for the next person to bash us. And then we all say, but that's just not quite right, is it?

We're always on defence. We need to get on the offensive.

We need to just educate a little bit more and And I mean, this is one of the things we did up in Cranfield. We'll be doing it again at the next university, is can we just tell you a little bit more about what's going on in this industry? And you can see the light bulb in the students of, I never knew. I mean, I did a webinar with a group of different industries. I was the only aviation one on it. And I went on to the webinar thinking, oh gosh, here we go, get ready. And, but I had probably, it's more prepared than I've ever been for any exam. I had all the facts and figures because I knew aviation's such an easy target that they were going to come after me. And they did, and I was ready for it. And I just kept going, meeting with fact, not emotional responses. Just, can I just explain to you, this is what the industry is doing, this is what we have been doing for 10 to 15 years, et cetera. And the Green Party representative rang me after the call, and she said, I had no idea. And I said, exactly, that's the point.

Well, we're here to educate as many people as we can educate.

That's right.

Thank you, Aoife. Really, thank you so much for joining me on this podcast.

Thank you for inviting me.

And hopefully we got some good stuff here to tell everybody, and we'll look forward to do another one, hopefully on whether it's on the ecological side of the industry or something else more fun and energetic to talk about. Talk about. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Steve.

Thank you so much for watching. Make sure you like, comment, and subscribe. Perfect, guys.

Well done. Thank you.

Okay.