Sustainable Aviation Fuel: American Airlines' Path to Decarbonizing Air Travel

Originally published in American Airlines' 2023 Sustainability Report

NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / August 13, 2024 / American Airlines

Sustainable Aviation Fuel

The clearest near-term way to decarbonize aviation based on current technological developments is by transitioning to sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). The SAF available on the market today can reduce life cycle GHG emissions by up to 85% compared with conventional, petroleum-based jet fuel, and new technologies and pathways hold the promise of delivering SAF with closer to 100% life cycle emission reductions. The reality, however, is that as critical as SAF is for achieving our own and the industry's climate goals, it is not yet available at the scale or price needed to be a feasible alternative for widespread commercial use - and achieving that will require the combined efforts of the private and public sectors.

How American is helping accelerate solutions

Purchasing and helping scale SAF production is a core part of American's climate strategy this decade. For example, we anticipate SAF will be key to achieving the insector reductions required to meet our science-based target for 2035, and we have set a goal to replace 10% of our jet fuel use with SAF in 2030. In 2023, we used nearly 2.7 million gallons of SAF on our flights, about a 4% increase over 2022, but still a small portion of the SAF we need to achieve our goal.

American is entering into offtake commitments with SAF producers to help secure the supply we need to achieve our goal. We're also working to advance the SAF market as an anchor member of Breakthrough Energy Catalyst, which invests in new decarbonization technologies. (See page 19 to read about our innovative agreement with Infinium.) Additionally, we continue to advocate for governments to deploy policy tools - including incentives, credits and investments in research - to help scale the SAF market.

The need for concerted action to scale the SAF market

The availability of SAF increased in 2023, but to reach the industry's goal of producing 3 billion gallons of cost-competitive SAF in 2030, the market needs to achieve a nearly 100% compound annual growth rate, based on Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data.¹ Clearly, there is a need to significantly accelerate the trajectory for the SAF market, which will require concerted effort by a range of stakeholders. Airlines have a key role to play, but it will also require engine and airframe manufacturers to enable higher SAF blends and the research community to advance innovation in the form of new SAF pathways. The energy sector needs to align its capital commitments, while the financial sector must find more effective ways to support the SAF market. Standard setters need to recognize new solutions, and policymakers need to enact smart policies that will drive further investment in the industry.