GE Aerospace's Christoph Pereira outlines multi-frontier sustainability strategy at Farnborough Airshow 2026
Why It MattersThe disclosures signal that hybrid-electric propulsion and AI-driven software are advancing in parallel with conventional engine gains as complementary paths toward aviation decarbonisation.
Christoph Pereira, GE Aerospace's CEO of Software as a Service, Aerospace Carbon Solutions and Sustainability, discussed the company's decarbonisation efforts across software, data and hybrid-electric propulsion in a podcast interview with SimpliFlying CEO Shashank Nigam at the Farnborough Airshow 2026. He said GE Aerospace has roughly 80,000 commercial and military engines in its installed base, powering nearly three out of every four commercial flights, and that modern engines are 40% more efficient than those from the 1970s and 1980s, cutting emissions by the same margin.
Pereira described the Open Fan programme, part of the CFM RISE platform, as potentially the largest technology programme in GE Aerospace's history, expected to deliver 20% better fuel efficiency than the best engines in service today. A headline announcement at Farnborough was a hybrid-electric flight demonstration above 30,000 feet, conducted with NASA, BETA Technologies and Boeing under NASA's Electrified Powertrain Flight Demonstration project, using a modified Saab 340B fitted with GE's hybrid-electric propulsion and battery on one side and conventional propulsion on the other; the aircraft also crossed the Atlantic to reach the airshow using hybrid-electric propulsion.
GE Aerospace also announced a jointly developed turbogenerator with BETA Technologies, which unveiled its MV250 autonomous hybrid-electric VTOL aircraft featuring the co-developed unit. Pereira noted the partnership was struck in September 2025 and the turbogenerator was on display in under a year.
On software, Pereira cited the Fuel Insight product, where a new environmental compliance module that would traditionally take more than two years was delivered in under six months. He said GE Aerospace's data library covers 370 million flight hours and 2.5 billion asset records, with more than 70 airlines and over half of the world's commercial fleet sharing data with the company. He added that AI tools would converge in capability over time, leaving data volume, customer trust, governance and domain expertise as lasting differentiators, and that GE Aerospace manages priorities across three horizons using its FLIGHT DECK operating system and Hoshin Kanri methodology. He concluded that no single technology will decarbonise aviation, and progress requires new engines, better software, improved weather insights and sustainable aviation fuel working together.
