When a Virgin Atlantic flight powered solely by cooking oil successfully jetted from London to New York last year, the airline’s billionaire co-founder Richard Branson was showered with praise. Politicians, aviation executives, and journalists, many of whom were invited on board, hailed the achievement as a milestone in the sector’s battle to decarbonize, while the flight itself was watched worldwide. “I was just thinking of my history of firsts across the Atlantic and all my previous ones I’ve ended up being pulled out…