Hi Reader,

This week's big aviation story didn't happen at 35,000 feet. It happened in a boardroom at Farnborough, where two very different companies signed a deal turning a concept people have been sceptical about for years into something you can actually book. If you've ever wondered where the next wave of flying jobs might come from, this is worth your full attention.

Somewhere in Manchester, a fifteen minute flight to Leeds just became a real product.

On 22 July, at the Farnborough International Airshow, Virgin Atlantic and Joby Aviation signed what they called a definitive, binding, multi year commercial framework. Virgin becomes Joby's exclusive airline partner for air taxi services in the UK. The plan is to launch first at Heathrow and Manchester, with Manchester positioned as the main gateway for the whole of northern England.

The routes on the table are startling in their ordinariness. Heathrow to central London in around eight minutes, a trip taking over an hour by road. Manchester to Leeds in about fifteen minutes. Joby's president of operations has pegged the Heathrow to city run at somewhere between the price of an Uber Black and a London black cab.

Here's the part most coverage has skipped past. This isn't a marketing partnership or a vague vision statement. Virgin will sell tickets through its own website and app, the same booking flow you'd use for a long haul seat to New York. Joby keeps full responsibility for flying the aircraft and chasing UK Civil Aviation Authority certification. Virgin handles infrastructure and customer acquisition.

Which raises the real question for anyone reading this newsletter. Somebody has to fly these things, dispatch them, maintain them, and run ground operations at brand new landing sites in two of Britain's busiest cities. None of those roles existed five years ago. The full detail on Joby's UK build out, including certification timing, is in the source link below.

Full story: https://www.flightglobal.com/strategy/2026/07/joby-and-virgin-atlantic-formalise-plan-to-create-uk-air-taxi-network/​

Whatever you think of eVTOL as a passenger product, it is quietly becoming a genuine career category. Worth watching closely if you are early in your training and want to be near the front of a queue which barely exists yet.

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FEATURED THIS WEEK

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Take a look: https://link.benlovegrove.com/aviation-careers​

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IN BRIEF

APOLLO'S £5.7 BILLION BID FOR EASYJET Private equity firm Apollo Global Management has offered £7.15 a share for easyJet, valuing the airline at roughly £5.7 billion and outbidding a rival proposal from Castlelake. EasyJet's board has signalled it is minded to recommend the Apollo offer. Apollo faces a deadline of 7 August under UK takeover rules to make it binding or walk away. Source: https://www.flightglobal.com/archive/2026/07/easyjet-poised-for-bidding-war-as-apollo-springs-rival-takeover-proposal/​

CREW ATTRITION FORCES SUN COUNTRY TO CUT A THIRD OF SEPTEMBER FLYING Sun Country, now owned by Allegiant, has pulled around 348 September departures at its Minneapolis St Paul hub, citing higher than expected pilot attrition alongside growing Amazon Air cargo demand. Allegiant's CEO described the cuts as temporary and said hiring is being accelerated to rebuild staffing. Source: https://airlinegeeks.com/2026/07/16/crew-attrition-forces-sun-country-schedule-cuts/​

FARNBOROUGH ORDERS PASS $84.7 BILLION Aircraft order commitments at this year's Farnborough International Airshow reached $84.7 billion after four trade days, according to show organisers, spanning firm orders, options, and passenger to freighter conversions across Airbus, Boeing, and Embraer. Source: https://aerospaceglobalnews.com/​

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FROM THE COMMUNITY

If you're early in training and the industry news can feel a long way from your own cockpit right now, this is normal. Every pathway into aviation, however unusual, started with someone learning the basics in a small aircraft on a quiet weekday. The routes change. The way you get there rarely does.

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This is this week's edition. Drop into the Facebook group if you want to talk through any of these stories, and I'll see you next Friday.

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