Why you should attend the Future Aero Festival
This December in Amsterdam, the conversations shaping aviation’s next chapter are happening. Here’s why we’ll be in the room.
Mark your calendars: On December 1–2, 2025, the Future Aero Festival, hosted by our friends at Sustainable Aero Lab, will gather aviation’s top innovators, startups, and investors in Amsterdam.
The SimpliFlying team will be there in full force, with our CEO, Shashank Nigam, taking the stage alongside Tim Boeltken, Co-Founder & CEO of e-fuels pioneer INERATEC. We’d love to see you there too – and we’ve even arranged a special discount code for our readers (more on that below).
Why this festival is worth your attention
The Future Aero Festival is built for thoughtful, in-depth discussion. Rather than polished decks and buzzword panels, the focus is on honest, unscripted conversations about what it really takes to scale sustainable aviation. How do new technologies connect with viable business models? How do regulation, capital, and industrial execution line up? And what separates hype from true commercial momentum?
It’s a format that reflects the work of Sustainable Aero Lab, which launched in 2021 with a mission to accelerate climate-neutral aviation. Since then, they’ve worked closely with nearly 100 startups and reviewed over 1,000, offering targeted mentoring and deep connections between innovators and industry experts.
A glimpse at what’s on the agenda
This year’s agenda is packed with sessions that will resonate with anyone working in sustainable aviation. A few sessions we’re especially keen on:
The SAF Reality Check: What’s actually slowing down production, despite mandates and momentum? With Peter Smeets (Bruski Smeets & Lange) and Tobias Lechtenfeld (Tech for Net-Zero).
How to Scale Up in Europe: Why the region punches below its weight on aerospace startups — and how to fix it. With Constantijn van Oranje (TechLeap) and Nichola Bates (XeleratedFifty).
Innovation as a Compass: KLM’s COO Maarten Stienen on balancing daily operations with long-term sustainable tech bets.
Transformative Technologies: What it takes to turn breakthrough R&D into real-world commercial programmes. With Michael Winter, Chief Science Officer, RTX.
And, of course, we’re especially excited about: From Molecules to Megatons – a fireside chat between Shashank Nigam and Tim Boeltken on INERATEC’s journey from lab to large-scale production, and what it takes to commercialise a science-first climate company.
Expect sharp insights from leaders at KLM, Embraer-X, Safran, RTX, Clean Aviation, and Breakthrough Energy Ventures, alongside early-stage startups aiming to define what’s next.
If you’re working in aviation decarbonisation — whether on the operational, strategic, policy or startup side — this is one of the few events where the conversations are likely to match your reality.
Why we’re going — and why you might want to
We’ve been following Sustainable Aero Lab’s work since the beginning, and we admire how they’ve built bridges between innovation and execution.
The Future Aero Festival is a natural extension of that: focused, unfiltered, and designed to spark collaboration. We’re looking forward to hallway conversations, honest on-stage debates, and the kind of momentum that comes when strategy meets shared purpose.
If you’re around, please come say hello! We always enjoy putting faces to names and chatting with fellow sustainability enthusiasts.
To make it easier for our community to join, we’ve partnered with Sustainable Aero Lab to offer an exclusive discount on Future Aero Festival tickets.
🎟️ Use the code SIMPLICOOL at checkout here to get 15% off your registration fees.