A Virgin Atlantic passenger jet flying from London to Recent York powered by 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) will take off on Tuesday, because the aviation world seeks to showcase the potential of low carbon options to secure its future.
Because the world de-carbonises, airlines are banking on fuel made out of waste to scale back their emissions by as much as 70%, enabling them to maintain operating before electric and hydrogen-powered air travel becomes a reality within the a long time to return.
The flight operated by a Virgin Boeing 787 powered by Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines, will probably be the primary time a business airline has flown long haul on 100% SAF.
It follows the successful transatlantic crossing by a Gulfstream G600 business jet using the identical fuel last week.
Virgin Atlantic’s billionaire founder Richard Branson, the airline’s chief executive Shai Weiss, and Britain’s transport minister Mark Harper will all be on board the flight scheduled to depart London Heathrow at 1130 GMT and arrive at Recent York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport at 1440 EST.
There will probably be no paying passengers on board or cargo on what Virgin has dubbed Flight100, which comes days before the beginning of COP28 climate talks in Dubai on Thursday.
SAF is already utilized in jet engines as a part of a mix with traditional kerosene, but after successful ground tests, Virgin and its partners Rolls-Royce, Boeing, BP and others won permission to fly using only SAF.
Aviation accounts for an estimated 2-3% of worldwide carbon emissions. SAF is vital toward reducing those emissions, but it surely is expensive and accounts for lower than 0.1% of total global jet fuel in use today.
The fuel used to power Tuesday’s flight is generally made out of used cooking oil and waste animal fat mixed with a small amount of synthetic fragrant kerosene made out of waste corn, Virgin Atlantic said.
Many European airlines — including Virgin, IAG-owned British Airways, and Air France — have said they wish to be using 10% SAF by 2030, and the industry’s goal of “net zero” emissions by 2050 relies on that share rising to 65%.
Yet the 2030 goal looks difficult given SAF’s small volumes and its high cost, at once about three to 5 times as much as regular jet fuel.
In October, the pinnacle of IAG warned that there was greater than a 90% risk the industry wouldn’t meet the European Union mandate for SAF availability in 2025.
Environmental advocacy group Stay Grounded called the flight “a greenwashing distraction.”
“(Fuel substitutes) are nowhere near being scalable within the obligatory timeframe to avoid climate collapse. What’s urgently needed is to scale back the burning of fossil jet fuels, which implies reducing flights wherever possible,” said Magdalena Heuwieser, who represents the network.
The aviation industry hopes that the Virgin Atlantic flight will highlight to governments the necessity for them to offer financial support to make SAF more available.
Virgin said the engines on the flight could be drained of SAF and tested before it returns to service using regular fuel.
Reporting by Sarah Young and Joanna Plucinska Editing by Tomasz Janowski
