The Asia-Pacific Airlines Association (AAPA) has set a target for its members to adopt a 5% use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) by 2030 to reduce carbon emissions, indicating demand for fuel producers.
The decision was announced at the association’s 67th meeting of presidents, highlighting challenges such as the limited availability and cost of SAF.
“The industry is emphasizing that our position is content and path agnostic. We have fossil fuels that can only be exploited in certain parts of the world but raw material for sustainable aviation fuel is available everywhere in the form of waste, agricultural and forestry residues. We need oil majors to provide the transition and governments to provide a necessary framework in the form of subsidies and incentives,” said AAPA director general Subhas Menon.
The 5% SAF utilization target is a common goal for the 14 AAPA member airlines, including newly inducted Air India.
In May, India’s Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas revealed its intention to mandate 1% SAF use by domestic carriers by 2025. Earlier, the civil aviation ministry stated its plans to increase sustainable aviation fuel blend to 2% by 2026 , and 5% by 2030.
However, an airline mandate may not work well until supply is secured, Menon said.
“The EU (European Union) has mandates. What is the point of mandates when there is no SAF provision? Mandates make no sense at the moment, so we need to focus on the supply side. Everyone says it’s a chicken and egg situation, I don’t think so. Airlines are taking all the fuel available at the moment, unfortunately, it’s just too little,” Menon added.
In addition, member airlines also highlighted the need for a policy framework that will reduce the price differential between jet fuel and green fuel.
“Fairness is extremely important to all of us. Cathay-Pacific is one of the first airlines in Asia to commit to using 10% SAF by 2030. We want to do the right thing but we don’t want to be penalized because that is much more expensive than fossil jet fuel ,” said Grace Cheung, general manager of sustainability, Cathay Pacific.
India has seen a few SAF demonstration flights, with SpiceJet flying in 2018 using 75% aviation turbine fuel blended with 25% biojet fuel. Tata group airlines signed a memorandum of understanding with CSIR–IIP in September last year to collaborate on research, development and deployment of sustainable aviation fuels. In May 2023, AirAsia India, now part of Air India Express, operated the first domestic commercial passenger flight in the country with a SAF merger of up to 1%.
Aviation contributes 3% of global carbon emissions. In 2016, the International Civil Aviation Organization set a carbon-neutral growth target from 2019 and a net-zero emissions target by 2050.
SAF production will hit around 300 million ltr in 2022, but currently represents only 0.1% of total aviation fuel use, according to the International Air Transport Association.
The reporter is in Singapore at the invitation of the Association of Asia-Pacific Airlines.
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Updated: 10 November 2023, 06:12 PM IST
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