Air travel demand is increasing at a rate much higher than the annual economic growth. This growth has both very positive and negative effects. The increase of negative effects – such as the noise pollution and greenhouse gas emissions – might not cause problems because technologies are being developed that will compensate them. The starting point of this research is to discover whether this claim concerning the possibilities of the current aircraft technology developments is true. In other words: is the current development in aircraft technology capable to contribute to a sustainable development in the aviation sector by keeping current benefits, while mitigating the adverse effects? Existing research on this issue is mostly trend research, focussing at the average technology efficiency increase and transposing this to the future. In a context where multiple actors have to decide about what to do, this transposition is not enough. An aggregated number does not reveal the concrete options and causal relations behind it. This paper, therefore, introduces the open and explicit method of systems analysis to answer the question if (and if so, how) new aircraft technology can mitigate the adverse effects of an increasing air travel demand, while keeping the benefits. Applying the systems analysis, this paper concludes that current developments in aircraft technology are not enough to mitigate the adverse effects of growth. The combination of the efficiency improvement rate, the growth rate of the demand for air travel, and the long replacement times for older technology in our research do not proof to cancel each other out. We suggest to not only invest more into developing even better technologies, but to also search for non-technical solutions; unless we, as a society, decide that an increase in the negative consequences of aviation is less important than other (environmental) issues.