Editor’s Note: On April 30, John Persinos, editor-in-chief of Aircraft Value Intelligence, interviewed Oscar Garcia, an aviation entrepreneur and capital strategist. Oscar is the chairman and CEO of Interflight Global Corporation and leads IFG Capital’s high-speed flight group. Below is an edited excerpt of the conversation, with questions in bold.
John Persinos, editor-in-chief of Aircraft Value Intelligence, interviewed Oscar Garcia, chairman and CEO of Interflight Global Corporation who also leads IFG Capital’s high-speed flight group, on April 30, 2026.
You claim that high-speed flight is no longer a technology problem but an infrastructure and capital allocation problem. What has changed recently that gives you confidence we’ve crossed that threshold?
That’s a great point. A few things have happened. Actually, we have to go back almost a couple of decades after the grounding of Concorde in 2003. We’re seeing an industrial push to replace the supersonic technology that the world accepted for almost four decades.
We’ve witnessed two decades of technological advancement of both propulsion and airframes, to create the capabilities of what could be a Concorde 2.0. And that has been happening behind the lines.
So, come 2026, where we are today, I’m confident to say that the technologies required for a supersonic and a hypersonic vehicle exist, and it’s already at readiness levels that could be pushed beyond demonstration into industrialization.
That’s what I mean by technology readiness. Now, the development of that aviation tech has not moved in lockstep with the necessary infrastructure and programmatic capital. We have a mismatch here.
Infrastructure to support the use of supersonic technology, and the hundreds of billions of dollars of capital needed to build that infrastructure, have not been forthcoming. They’re available but not committed nor deployed yet.
What are the specific lessons from space and satellites that investors and aviation players are either applying or still missing?
You can draw a parallel to the space economy and the satellite industry, where early capital is effectively deciding who owns the rails, so to speak.
There is one lesson, a tough lesson, that we are all going through in the space industry. The appetite for space launch is starting to exceed the thousands of launches a year.
Our infrastructure can’t even accommodate satellite industry demand as it exists today. But we have to learn one lesson about high-speed transportation. Coming up in the future, the low-lead items, such as infrastructure, spaceports, airports, and high-speed ports, need to be put in place so we don’t get caught like the space industry.
Right now, there’s a big bottleneck in space. There’s more demand for launch vehicles than infrastructure available with spaceports. That’s why when it comes to supersonic flight, my colleagues and I are saying: let’s commit infrastructure capital.
I’m not saying immediately deploy the huge amount of money required, but let’s commit the funds available five, ten years in advance, as supersonic and hypersonic vehicles come into play.
You project a $100 billion-plus supersonic market by 2030 with suborbital alone accounting for more than $50 billion. Those are very bold claims. What are the underlying revenue streams that make that scale realistic?
Well, I will give you evidence that those revenue streams are in the realm of the possible. Take the air transportation system as it exists today and track its growth. This system is growing at twice the rate of global GDP. Today, we’re seeing about 5 billion travelers per year, a number that’s projected to reach about 15 billion by 2050.
It’s only a logical assumption that the space and high-speed transportation element, both people and payrolls, could generate huge revenue streams in this context.
Your financial business roundtable emphasizes, quote, “aligning capital before acceleration.” What does mis-aligned capital look like in this sector, and how can it derail high-speed flight initiatives?
That’s a great question and it’s a reality we’re going through. Here’s how the misalignment happens. Capital has been deployed to demonstrate supersonic, hypersonic, and suborbital transportation capabilities. Companies like Boom, Hermes, and SpaceX have demonstrated supersonic, hypersonic, and suborbital capabilities to move from point-to-point anywhere around the Earth in a couple of hours.
What has happened is that from demonstration to industrialization, the needed capital is lacking. This gap is worsened by the proliferation of these demonstrations.
Our financial business roundtable involves decision makers capable of deploying capital in the tens and even hundreds of billions of dollars. We intend to show financiers how these technologies are ready, how they are being demonstrated, and how quickly they can proliferate into the mass transportation business.
For all those reasons, we are aiming to secure commitments of $100 billion or more by the end of the decade.
You describe this moment as a narrow window where fewer than 50 participants could shape the entire market. What kind of players are you trying to bring into that circle? Traditional aerospace firms, private equity, sovereign funds, or new entrants?
We are trying to bring in the major fund managers, such as Black Rock, KKR, Vanguard, Main Street, and Nova Capital. These entities are familiar with 10 to 20 year horizons and they’re capable of providing many billions of dollars of committed capital.
We’re not asking these entities to deploy the capital or make it available immediately. We’re seeking two decades of programmatic commitment. But the starting point is a hundred billion in committed capital between now and 2030. And the names of the entities are drawn fundamentally from U.S. funds, hedge funds, and infrastructure project finance funds.
If we fast forward 10 years, what does success look like?
I envision 10 to 20 million people every year moving across the Earth and reaching any destination within about two hours of their departure, no matter how hard the destination. Critical cargo and payloads will be moved across the Earth by similar rates of speed.
It’s also important to realize that sovereign nations that today are considered remote will greatly benefit. I’m talking about far-flung places like Patagonia or Mongolia or parts of Africa.
Supersonic flight will spark a massive relocation and restructuring of Earth’s centers of gravity for socioeconomic development. If I were a real estate developer, I’d pay attention to what I just said.
Thanks for your time.
John Persinos is the editor-in-chief of Aircraft Value Intelligence. To view John’s interviews with the aerospace industry’s top influencers, visit the video section at: www.aviationtoday.com
