Sustainability

Airlines are having to take a much more pro-active stance with their sustainability drives. With cries of ‘greenwashing’ over previous offset schemes they need to be transparent in their communications and honest in their activity.

It has been said that the least-emitting flight “is one that doesn’t happen at all”. While we will see substitution to other forms of travel for short-haul (especially short-distance domestic travel) that is not a practical solution in a world where long-haul travel has proliferated.

As such climate scientists say that to get climate change under control, airlines need to reduce their emissions and consumers will become increasingly demanding as the subject of sustainability dominates the headlines.

One of the biggest movers in this area is sustainable aviation fuels. There’s momentum growing in this field, but there are still unresolved issues about scaling up, getting costs at least competitive with standard fuels, getting governments to support R&D, production and infrastructure.

• Are things scaling up fast enough to reach airlines stated goals?

• What policies and incentives need to be put in place to help the ramp-up of SAF use?

• Are SAFs as environmentally friendly as they’re advertised? What are the guarantees that airlines have that their SAFs are truly “sustainable”?