Airlines urge governments to save floundering green jet fuel industry

A UK initiative to promote green jet fuel will need to be taken up around the world - and built on - if the technology is to have any chance of delivering its promise of radically cleaner flying, airline executives warned at the Farnborough Airshow. Last week, Britain's new Labour government announced plans to introduce a price guarantee for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) to incentivise producers to open more plants and build infrastructure to ramp up the fuel's production. Two decades after airlines pledged to switch to biofuels, SAF accounts for just 0.2% of the jet fuel market. The aviation industry says this will need to rise to 65% by 2050 if it is to reach "net zero" carbon emissions by then. Airlines and SAF producers have been caught in a paralysing blame game for years. Airlines say they want more green fuel, while SAF producers say they can't make more until airlines agree to pay the market price. SAF currently costs up to five times more than traditional jet fuel. Julie Kitcher, chief sustainability officer at Airbus, said more solid investment plans and bolder financing from across the sector would help bring the industry to scale and boost supply. Policy support, such as the UK's mechanism or Singapore's SAF levy, can take the cost burden off airlines, if crafted constructively, Kitcher and other executives said. "It's really about back to basics ... it's about going through the value chain of the whole aviation system and everybody taking a share, because we won't get there without it," she said.<br/>