SAF will represent just 0.8% of global jet fuel in 2026.
Fifteen years after the first commercial flight powered partially by sustainable aviation fuel took off, the global market for SAF remains “teeny, tiny and embryonic”, making the airline industry’s goal to achieve net zero by 2050 appear increasingly unlikely.
This was the stark warning issued by IATA senior vice-president sustainability and chief economist Marie Owens Thomsen at the industry body’s annual general meeting in Rio de Janeiro on 6 June.
“We are doing as much as we can and will do more to build the market,” says Owens Thomsen, pointing to IATA’s support for a book-and-claim system – where SAF produced elsewhere in the world can be purchased and its environmental benefits claimed by airlines – which, she says, “is the only opportunity we have to scale the market without waiting for all the supply chains to be built”.
IATA estimates that global SAF production will reach about 2.4 million tonnes in 2026, representing just 0.8% of global airline fuel use. The industry’s goal to reach net zero by 2050 is contingent on 65% of its fuel needs being met by SAF.
“The path to meeting 65% of our needs in 2050 is growing more difficult with each year of ineffectively sequenced government policies and oil companies’ manifest lack of interest,” says IATA director general Willie Walsh. He told delegates attending the AGM that “there is still hope for 2050, but that hope is fading fast”.
IATA has railed against SAF mandates in the European Union and the UK, arguing that their introduction before the SAF supply chain has been built up sufficiently is pushing up the cost by creating more demand.
“We’re not saying abandon mandates, we’re saying it matters what you do and when you do it. When you mandate, the price goes up,” says Owens Thomsen.
As an interim measure while advanced SAF technologies such as e-fuels are scaled up, IATA supports co-processing and the use of so-called lower carbon aviation fuel (LCAF) – both of which involve the use of fossil-based fuels. These options could present “immediate opportunities for cost-effective decarbonisation”, according to IATA.
Walsh highlights that the current high jet fuel prices resulting from the Iran conflict should be a catalyst for SAF to take off, but that does not appear to be happening.
“The current energy shock should add even more urgency to the development of renewables, including SAF,” he says. “But we have yet to see either the energy shock, the need to develop energy independence and jobs, or the urgency to mitigate climate change materialise in the incentives needed to create a viable SAF market.”
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