Aviation accounts for approximately five percent of global greenhouse gas emissions through the combustion of fossil fuels. This paper analyses the opportunities and challenges of mitigation measures in limiting travel volume, energy and emission intensity to reduce the climate impact of aviation in Sweden. Several measures are in place that aim to reduce the climate impact of the aviation industry, ranging from regulations to technology alternatives to fossil-based jet fuel. These measures face several crosscutting challenges, many of which are of a socio-economic and political nature, and these aspects are often neglected in favour of focusing on technological solutions. The market creation for alternatives to fossil-based jet fuel is a major challenge, as most consumers today have a limited awareness of and willingness to pay for these innovations. Policy measures in place are proven ineffective in incentivising change. An understanding of the industry as a socio-technical system is required. The value of this review is its broader consideration of the pathways to reduce aviation's climate impact, offering new perspectives and pointing to areas for further research considering all components, their interactions and interdependence.

The aim of this paper is to analyse contemporary transitions in the aviation industry in Sweden. We take a durational perspective to consider narratives as coordinating mechanism in sustainability transitions. We find that industry actors are constructing narratives for alternative aircraft fuels and technologies as they seek to maintain aviation's societal function whilst mitigating its climate impact. By reconciling memories of the past with their expectations for the future, narratives act to coordinate actors’ transition activities in the present. In this way, narrative are more than an initiator of transitions, but constitute paths in-the-making, highlighting the agency of actors in enacting change in the present and shaping sustainability transitions of the future.

The decarbonisation of aviation is a major challenge in the global pursuit of sustainability, with aircraft operations contributing around 3 % of global carbon dioxide emissions. Electric aviation offers a promising response, combining the potential for zero-emission flight with revitalised short-haul and regional markets through low-cost, point-to-point operations. However, its development faces major obstacles, including technological immaturity, infrastructural lock-ins, regulatory complexity, and uncertain consumer acceptance. In this context, legitimacy—the perceived appropriateness of an emerging technology within established social, institutional, and technical contexts—becomes a vital precondition. This paper examines how legitimacy is enacted through the interplay of discursive and material practices, conceptualised as sociomaterial legitimation. Drawing on a longitudinal case study of Heart Aerospace, a Swedish electric aircraft start-up, the analysis traces how narratives, artefacts, and actor-networks interact to build and maintain legitimacy over time. Using media analysis, participant observations, and documentary sources, the paper shows that legitimacy is not merely constructed through discourse but materially performed through prototypes, demonstrators, and choreographed public events. These findings advance an understanding of sociomaterial legitimation in sustainability transitions and offer practical insights for policymakers and industry actors working to support emerging technologies under conditions of uncertainty.

The future of aviation is a growing subject of debate, with different actors promoting diverse discourses on climate mitigation and sustainability. We employ argumentative discourse analysis to explore competing discourses around the future of aviation in Sweden, focusing empirically on the aviation industry and the flight-free movement. Drawing on thirty interviews, one workshop, and forty-three documents, we show how these actor groups represent two discourse-coalitions that articulate opposing discourses on the future of aviation: ‘Green flying’ and ‘Staying on the ground’. Following a logic of (techno)solutionism, Green flying anticipates aviation to maintain a dominant role in society and assures that technological progress will overcome the sector’s climate concerns in the future. Meanwhile, Staying on the ground follows a logic of prefiguration to demonstrate the desirability of an alternative and less aeromobile future, with actors embodying new norms and practices around avoiding flying in the present. The paper contributes to research in critical policy studies by demonstrating how actors with conflicting interests, values, and worldviews imagine and engage with futures differently in their attempts to shape transition pathways and policy-making in the present.