Jeppesen enters the arena

Date (UTC): 2026-07-06

Hi its Sam Chandra - CEO/Founder of Deepsky and the author of this newsletter. Here’s my take on todays news - which represents the last few days of AI in Aviation happenings around the world:

This is the first of our regular editions now the catch up series is behind us, and it is split into sections so you can jump straight to your patch: airlines, pilot assistance, air traffic management, military, AI in general, and a bucket for everything else.

I have to lead with Skymerse, partly because the founder Damian is a mate of mine, and partly because he has just been accepted into Y Combinator, the programme that produced Airbnb and OpenAI, to automate flight planning for aircraft operators. Go and have a look at what he is building. This is part of a much grander change, that you can see again in the Jeppesen ForeFlight story: software is starting to be built for AI agents to use rather than people, and Jeppesen feeding quality controlled aeronautical data into that layer is a real step in that direction. Elsewhere the cheques keep getting bigger, Quantum Systems raised $1.2 billion for autonomous drones and the GCAP fighter landed £4.6 billion, while Anthropic shipped Sonnet 5 and made a capable AI agent cheap enough to actually run in an operation. Enjoy.

✈️ Airlines

Skymerse Joins Y Combinator

Skymerse, founded by my friend Damian Szumski, has been accepted into Y Combinator, the same accelerator that birthed the likes of Airbnb and OpenAI, to automate flight planning for aircraft operators. Go and check him out.

IAG’s Accelerator Bets on Operational AI

In the latest round of its IAGi accelerator, IAG said its priority is now operational AI embedded in the tools airlines already run, pointing to disruption and schedule recovery optimisers that evaluate far more recovery scenarios, and faster, than a duty manager can.

Gulf Startup 1001 Raises $30 Million

1001, a 2025 founded Dubai and London startup, raised a $30 million Series A led by Lux Capital with Sanabil and 9Yards to deploy predictive AI that forecasts disruptions across Gulf aviation, ports and energy infrastructure.

🧑‍✈️ Pilot assistance

ForeFlight Launches Its Airflow AI Engine

The future of software is software that is used by AI agents, not humans, and Jeppesen have just entered the arena. Their new Airflow platform essentially serves quality controlled aeronautical data to those agents, which can then perform the tasks you need doing and ultimately give you the outcomes you want.

Palantir Takes a Stake in Surf Air Mobility

Palantir took a 7.4 percent stake in Surf Air Mobility and expanded their deal to scale SurfOS, an AI operating system built on Palantir’s Foundry that ties together the operator, owner and enterprise back office workflows of fragmented private aviation.

🗼 ATM

Leidos and Singapore’s A*STAR Open a Joint ATM Lab

Leidos and A*STAR’s Institute for Infocomm Research are opening a joint Singapore lab that pairs Leidos’ ATM, AI and cybersecurity work with I²R’s data analytics, aimed at automating and digitising air traffic management for the fast growing Asia-Pacific.

🪖 Military

GCAP Hands Edgewing a £4.6 Billion Contract

The UK, Italy and Japan moved their sixth generation fighter into full design and development, awarding £4.6 billion to the BAE, Leonardo and Japanese industry joint venture Edgewing. The jet is being built as an AI driven system of systems that commands uncrewed drones across five domains, with a prototype to fly by end 2027 and service entry in 2035.

The Pentagon Appoints a Drone Boss

Defense Secretary Hegseth created a Direct Reporting Program Manager for Unmanned Systems, a single joint integrator consolidating nearly all of the Pentagon’s drone and autonomy programmes and their budgets, including CCA-adjacent work, reporting to the deputy secretary.

Quantum Systems Raises $1.2 Billion

Munich’s Quantum Systems raised a $1.2 billion Series D co-led by Blackstone, Airbus and Advent, more than doubling its valuation to about $8 billion in the largest European defence tech round to date, to scale its AI enabled autonomous reconnaissance and strike drones.

Boeing’s Ghost Bat Flies Operationally at Point Mugu

Boeing’s AI piloted MQ-28 Ghost Bat completed three operational flights at Point Mugu, validating autonomous operations and rapid deployment from an allied location, and will fly alongside crewed fighters at Valiant Shield 2026.

Ukraine Is Launching Drones From Robot Boats

Ukraine’s Sea Baby uncrewed boats now carry six to eight FPV strike drones plus thermobaric rockets and use AI assisted targeting and navigation to operate under heavy jamming, extending drone strikes from naval launch points across the Black Sea.

🧠 AI (in general)

Anthropic Ships Claude Sonnet 5

Anthropic released Claude Sonnet 5 as its new default, its most agentic Sonnet yet with autonomous planning and browser and terminal use, at near Opus quality for an introductory $2 and $10 per million tokens, cheap enough to make the agentic operations airlines are piloting viable.

Fable 5 Comes Back Online

The US lifted the 12 June export control directive that had pulled Anthropic’s Fable 5 offline for about three weeks and gated OpenAI’s GPT-5.6, and Anthropic restored access, the reversal of the frontier access story from last edition.

Grok 4.5 Goes Into Beta Inside SpaceX and Tesla

xAI put Grok 4.5, a 1.5 trillion parameter model, into private beta first inside SpaceX and Tesla engineering rather than a public launch. Musk claims it rivals or beats Claude Opus, though xAI has published no benchmarks or safety documentation.

The Money Is Almost All Going to AI

Global venture funding hit about $510 billion in the first half of 2026 with AI taking 65 to 70 percent of it and OpenAI and Anthropic alone capturing roughly 43 percent, the capital backdrop behind every aviation and defence AI raise in this issue.

🧩 Misc

Lufthansa Technik Trials Drone Aircraft Inspections

Lufthansa Technik trialled automated aircraft inspections at its Milan hangar with Toulouse based Donecle, whose certified drones already operate across 15 countries, aiming to cut inspection times and improve precision over manual checks.

cargo.one Goes Live With Air India Cargo

Air India Cargo made up to 2,500 kg of general cargo capacity bookable on cargo.one, whose AI native freight operating system gives forwarders instant quoting and self service booking in place of manual enquiries.

Wisk and Boeing Sued Over eVTOL Software Safety

A former Wisk software manager is suing, alleging she was fired after filing internal reports that executives cut FAA required software testing on the autonomous Gen 6 air taxi to hit a 2025 flight deadline.

Sam here again, hope you have enjoyed reading this edition. If there is one thread this week it is that AI is moving into the operational core of aviation, the flight planning, the data and the decisions, not just the slide decks. Getting that right is less about the model and more about understanding how an operation actually runs day to day. That is where Deepsky sits. We are seasoned flight operations people, and we help operators put AI to work across their world in a way that fits how they actually fly.

If that is on your mind, contact me at sam@deepskyai.com or visit deepskyai.com.