Sustainable aviation fuel costs more but consumers will be willing to pay, IATA chief says

Sustainable aviation fuel’s main challenge relates to volume rather than airlines’ desire to use it, and consumers will be willing to pay the extra costs associated with its uptake, the director general of the IATA said Friday. “I think quantity is the main issue at the moment,” Willie Walsh said. “We used about 100 million liters of sustainable aviation fuel in 2021 — that’s a very small amount compared to the total fuel required for the industry.” Looking ahead, Walsh said airlines had ordered 14 billion liters of SAF. “I think that addresses the issue of whether airlines will buy the product,” he said. Walsh noted this was happening even though the price of SAF was “about two and a half times the price of jet kerosene. When you factor in the cost of carbon, you’re looking at maybe … twice the price of kerosene.” While there appears to be some demand for SAF, meeting it is another question entirely and its road to dominance in the sector looks to be a long one. With “appropriate government policy support,” IATA says it expects to see SAF production hit 7.9b liters by 2025, which would meet just 2% of the overall fuel requirement. By the middle of the century, the trade association says production would jump to 449b liters, or 65% of the sector’s needs. The environmental footprint of aviation is considerable, with the World Wildlife Fund describing it as “one of the fastest-growing sources of the greenhouse gas emissions driving global climate change.” The WWF also says air travel is “currently the most carbon intensive activity an individual can make.”<br/>