If I were a politician, I would contemplate the right combination of carrot and stick to get large-scale production under way, in order to transform Swedish domestic air travel as a first step. People in the industry say this can be done in 10–15 years, but it won’t happen on its own.
After 2060, there may be four million people living in the region, surpassing Copenhagen. We won’t be a megacity like London or Paris, but we’ll be the perfect size without the disadvantages of a megacity in terms of distances and crowding.
We know that roughly three million people die each year due to air pollution. Electrically-powered transport is environmentally-friendly and efficient, and a switch to this would entail a considerable reduction in air pollution.
What I would like to see now is the development of Arlanda. I would like to see a fourth runway, and the region has to give things a push now.
We can’t minimise our investment. Instead we have to look at the life cycle cost, investments, maintenance and refurbishments and then connect that to income streams.
As long as we build bodies like the human body and develop capabilities based on sensor data that function the same way our senses do, then I see no limits. It’s more a matter of what the solutions are, a mobile robot, or a solution with intelligence integrated into different aspects of an airport. They’re available to some extent today.
And Arlanda can continue to grow, but that depends on whether we’re successful in dealing with climate change. The challenge now is to find solutions for the production of environmentally-friendly fuels, without increasing fuel costs.
Travelling will be a crucial source of inspiration when the major social problems of our time are to be solved. To efficiently travel from A to B is important, but the biggest gains lie in what the trip will bring in the next stage.
The great flattening of the world that air travel has created has huge benefits for business, boosting economic growth. The aviation industry has a global economic impact of $ 2.2 trillion.
Swedish companies have 200 subsidiaries in São Paulo with a combined sales of more than 50 billion Swedish crowns. In a way, São Paulo has become Sweden’s biggest industrial city. However, a direct flight from Sweden to São Paulo, or Brazil, has yet to be created.