With airlines realising they have to actually do something and spend money, as opposed to making empty promises about Sustainable Air Fuel, Virgin Atlantic has been busy, with the airline securing a volume of SAF.
Let us take a look at how they have achieved this and who they have partnered with.
The airline confirmed the purchase of 10m US Gallons per annum of SAF to be produced by Gevo, Inc. and supplied by Virgin Atlantic’s joint venture partner, Delta Air Lines, covering 70 Million US Gallons in total.
The agreement with Delta builds on the existing long-term partnership between Delta and Gevo and increases the use of SAF from the US West Coast. SAF produced by Gevo will come from one of its future production facilities.
The fuel will be delivered to Los Angeles or San Francisco, for fueling onto the aircraft.
This new SAF agreement with Delta represents 20% of Virgin Atlantic’s 2030 SAF target and is equivalent to fuelling more than 500 flights across the transatlantic from Los Angeles.
In Quotes
Holly Boyd Boland, VP of Corporate Development at Virgin Atlantic commented:
“We know that SAF has a fundamental role to play in aviation decarbonisation. The demand from airlines is clear and Virgin Atlantic is committed to supporting the scale up of SAF production at pace. We cannot meet our collective ambition of Net Zero 2050 without it.
“We’re proud that our fleet leads the way on fuel and carbon efficiency, but we know that more needs to be done. We’re excited to be partnering with Delta to further reduce our carbon emissions on flights across the transatlantic.”
Pam Fletcher, Delta’s CSO and Head of Corporate Innovation said:
“We need to create strong demand signals to ensure SAF can scale affordably to the levels our industry needs on the path to net zero by 2050. That’s why we’re excited about this joint partnership with Virgin Atlantic and Gevo that brings further commitment to SAF for the benefit of customers, our industry and the planet.”
The SAF Supply problem
At Economy Class and Beyond, we congratulate airlines that are adopting SAF to try and make a difference. But if you’ve read through this blog, more than once, we’ve brought up the issue of the supply of SAF to the market and how much of that is a mere drop in a kerosene ocean.
According to Virgin Atlantic, Global SAF production today represents less than 0.1% of jet fuel, making it imperative for the aviation industry to accelerate change.
Supply remains key, with players such as Neste investing – however, development of the sheer quantities required is still an issue, even as airlines try to meet their net-zero targets, whilst addressing various mixes of SAF and Aviation fuel.
Remember, we were looking at 95 billion gallons of fuel before the pandemic hit – and that demand will only increase as people want to travel.
This collaboration between Delta and Virgin Atlantic on a long-term supply of SAF to Virgin Atlantic is demonstrative of increasing demand and them wanting to invest.
And airlines will need to invest if they want to they want this fuel on tap, to meet their net-zero commitments by 2050.
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