Onboard ‘Flight100’ – the first transatlantic flight powered by 100% sustainable aviation fuel

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• Can2 says:

  29 Nov29 November 06:36

  I’m optimistic. Saving 10 ton of CO_2 is better than not saving it. I’m not optimistic enough for electric planes though.

  • AJA says:

    29 Nov29 November 08:35

    I agree it’s a step in the right direction. And I’m glad the flight went without a hitch and landed safely in New York.

    But regarding the CO2 saved how much of that was down to the most direct routing and also the light load of only 120 passengers and no cargo in the hold? Also did anyone have a suitcase in the hold or was everyone hand baggage only?

    I wonder what the CO2 saving would be with a normally loaded 787? My understanding is that using SAF doesn’t really reduce the emissions of the aircraft, it’s all about the life cycle savings assuming that enough SAF can be produced.

    Also given the need to scale up operations to produce the SAF who is going to bear the cost of that? Will we see a levy on our air tickets?

    • Can2 says:

      29 Nov29 November 08:47

      Correct. The devil is in the details.

      I’d think that the levy could also be put on fossil fuel flights rather than SAF ones.

      However, in a world we can fly to Spain for £20, it is a very difficult task overall anyways

    • Andy says:

      29 Nov29 November 09:21

      “ it’s all about the life cycle savings assuming that enough SAF can be produced.”

      And that’s the real problem it’s almost impossible to produce enough feedstock to produce SAF in anything approaching sufficient quanitites

      There’s experiments making SAF from CO2 that might bear more fruit longer term

• Paul says:

  29 Nov29 November 06:42

  SAF may make a tiny dent in aviation emissions one day, but let’s be clear this was a stunt. During the day the media reported this was a commercial flight but there were no paying passengers and for safety reason the passenger load was restricted!
  Branson got to perform on camera and have a dig at ShortHaul flying, something VS doesn’t do, while the U.K. Tory gov got to peddle the exceptionalism line and give the appearance of doing something – when not actually doing anything at all: aside from spaffing £1million of tax payer funds, something they excel at!

  • Ziggy says:

    29 Nov29 November 07:23

    So much negativity for 06:42

    • Alex Sm says:

      29 Nov29 November 08:49

      Yes… 😳

  • Rich says:

    29 Nov29 November 07:37

    Seeing as you chose to bring politics into it……just you wait til after the next election – the spaffing of our hard earned cash will then reach a whole other level Paul.

    I got out of the right side of bed this morning and my glass is half full – I’d say that the flight was progress on a long road.

    • Chrisasaurus says:

      29 Nov29 November 07:55

      Indeed – something is better than nothing and I’m not seeing a lot of progress or progressive thinking anywhere else

  • Rhys says:

    29 Nov29 November 09:10

    I think we can all agree that it makes sense not to bring paying customers on the world’s first transatlantic SAF flight.

    You do realise that the engine and aircraft manufacturers fly thousands of hours in empty planes to test and certify them!

• Andrew J says:

  29 Nov29 November 07:03

  I’m not sure what the connection is between SAF and levelling-up?

  • His Holyness says:

    29 Nov29 November 07:14

    😂 Rhys probably doesn’t know what levelling up is.

    • Rob says:

      29 Nov29 November 07:40

      The proposed sites for plants are in the north, probably because they will be smelly 🙂

      • Numpty says:

        29 Nov29 November 08:17

        You build the manufacturing plant close to the supply of raw materials….

        • Panda Mick says:

          29 Nov29 November 09:20

          And most of the rape seed is grown in the south, so…..

        • Rui N. says:

          29 Nov29 November 11:16

          @Panda Mick, it is not allowed in the UK to make SAF from crops.

        • Richard says:

          29 Nov29 November 13:02

          @Rui N – Really? Why not? (This is a completely genuine question, I’m sure there’s a good reason and I’m interested in what it is. From a totally uninformed perspective, it feels like we have plenty of agricultural land so why not use it this way.)

      • Yorkieflyer says:

        29 Nov29 November 14:57

        I do hope that Rhys doesn’t pong of chip fat afterwards?

        • Rui N. says:

          29 Nov29 November 18:25

          @Richard because REDII and accompanying UK regulation says so.

        • Rui N. says:

          29 Nov29 November 18:26

          @Richard and you don’t want to use it that way because growing food to burn is stupid.

  • Rich says:

    29 Nov29 November 07:38

    Building refining facilities in the North perhaps but yep, it’s funding for net zero initiatives that is what I’d have put.

• Brian says:

  29 Nov29 November 07:06

  So what’s missing from the first sentence of Koster‘s quote? What did they know????

  • Chrisasaurus says:

    29 Nov29 November 07:56

    The difference between ‘myself’ and ‘me’ maybe? Perhaps they’ll teach Rhys 🧐

• Chris W says:

  29 Nov29 November 07:52

  Did Sir RB fly his private jet to London to give the sustainability speech?

  • laughingplace says:

    29 Nov29 November 09:20

    No doubt 😂 the virtue signalling is strong with this one.

  • can2 says:

    29 Nov29 November 14:18

    Of course he did, sustainability is for us poor peasants.

    • Rhys says:

      29 Nov29 November 14:24

      He didn’t, actually 🙂

• Chrisasaurus says:

  29 Nov29 November 07:54

  Rhys great piece – I’m intrigued why such. Busy corridor doesn’t always take the most direct route?

  • Greenpen says:

    29 Nov29 November 08:34

    So, some ‘normal’ flights will be on this track anyway every day? If it’s more efficient for Beardy then it must work for all others too.

    • DanATC says:

      29 Nov29 November 12:57

      Nearly all North Atlantic flights will be on the track system over the ocean. In domestic airspace ATC will do their best to use direct routings, continuous descent profiles (as opposed to less efficient stepped descents), and other fuel saving techniques for all aircraft wherever possible, although the CO2 savings are small relative to those possible from SAF and other alternative fuels in the future.

• Bluekjp says:

  29 Nov29 November 08:01

  Rhys, tell us. Did you come off smelling of chips?😀

• His Holyness says:

  29 Nov29 November 08:06

  They obviously cooked the books with CAA limited 120 pax, it’s one of the least efficient flights to cross the Atlantic yesterday? Take-away all the stuff that any flight can do, direct routing, single engine taxi, special decent and climb, how much was actually saved by SAF? Did they manage to help themselves and not specify some amount because its a B787 compared to a B707?
  To calculate the flight based on the tiny load, how much CO2 would be saved per pax to get rid of F/J/W cabins and go with a high density Y cabin? Absolutely loads I bet.

  The most effective way to reduce aviation emissions is to cut unnecessary travel. If that’s not going to be Covid-style bans/passes then more taxation is the answer to stop people flying.
  A PR stunt on a flight filled with people who want you to travel more (its their livelihood to get your bum in a seat) is really silly.
  Tough intergovernmental intervention to combat aviation emissions would put bells on the efforts to find proper sustainable alternatives. Right now, there is little incentive.

  • CamFlyer says:

    29 Nov29 November 08:31

    All fair points for political discourse. However, on a frequent flyer site this comes across as Turkeys calling for Thanksgiving (to use the seasonal American phrase).

    • AJA says:

      29 Nov29 November 08:53

      Maybe that is so. But the points are valid. It’s great that there’s investment in trying new ideas but let’s be honest about this. The reality is that China is building new airports at a phenomenal rate and that passenger growth is likely to be in the far east but at what cost to the planet? And who are we to tell China that they must stop?

      And for most of us here it won’t really make any difference but this is all about making steps towards our descendants being able to be lucky enough to do what we’ve been doing for years.

      We can sit here and pontificate that it’s a stunt or indeed do the opposite and celebrate that it’s a step in the right direction. Both points of view are valid.

      Note, I am not saying one point of view is equal with the other but it seems to me that ignoring the downsides or, more charitably, the less positive aspects is a folly. That’s like celebrating the fact that you can earn double TP on a BA Holiday, on your way to GfL without realising that we are very privileged to be able to take advantage of the offer. Or that it still requires a lot of cash to do so and that for many the reality is flying on holiday is a pipe dream, let alone sitting in Business Class.

      And while this website is primarily aimed at airline and hotel loyalty point collecting frequent flyers it does also make sense to cover initiatives such as this. But to do so without considering the negatives is doing us all a disservice and comes across as an advert for SAF, which is primarily what this is.

      But well done to HfP for covering this and I think it’s great that there is someone out there interested enough to try researching these alternatives as, to quote Tesco, every little helps.

      • His Holyness says:

        29 Nov29 November 09:16

        I am leaning towards an alternate theory. Because so little is being done about the “climate and ecological emergency” and the measures which are taken are utterly pointless that there is no *anthropogenic* climate change.

        • Rob says:

          29 Nov29 November 09:27

          I mean ….. what do you actually do all day? You clearly don’t have any sort of proper management job, because you can’t turn around these days without some new energy reduction plan coming your way. A lot is just very boring so it’s not discussed, eg banning companies from signing new lesses to rent offices which do not meet energy efficiency standards, hence the biggest UK office upgrade programme in history currently going on.

          The UK now delivers 36% of its energy from renewables – solar, wind, hydro, nuclear, biomass. It’s a huge sum but one that has slowly crept up over the years with no-one noticing. A wind farm here, some solar panels there and suddenly you’re at 36%.

        • Ryan says:

          29 Nov29 November 10:59

          @Rob, there IS a substantial amount of renewable at the moment, but without a huge shift in battery storage technology (or flooding mountains for hydro batteries) then renewables cannot take on the base load requirements, for that something that doesn’t rely on wind or sun is needed

        • Numpty says:

          29 Nov29 November 13:35

          the shift to battery storage has started, and as there is money to be made, there are a lot of investors busily throwing money into it for what are expected to be very good returns. 100 hundred years ago every town and village in the UK had a gasworks site, looking ahead you could see every town have a battery storage facility with the idea being the batteries are charged up when low demand and then used to meet peak demand in the local area.

  • Kowalski says:

    29 Nov29 November 08:36

    How about a Chinese style social credit score system which only permits good (and wealthy) citizens to fly?

  • Mikeact says:

    29 Nov29 November 09:17

    ‘Cut unnecessary travel ‘…are you joking. It seems to me that all airlines are increasing routes and ordering 1000’s of new planes…all due to us (around the world) all wanting to travel more.

    • His Holyness says:

      29 Nov29 November 10:45

      So reduce all the deadly carbon emissions from
      everyday life to be able to fly more? There won’t be less carbon there will be more, even if per pax there is less. It makes no sense 🤡. It all has to be cut, right across the board. Fewer flights, fewer car journeys, less meat, more efficient home heating. Flights are way more unnecessary, Covid showed us how we can manage just fine without them.

      • Simon Barlow says:

        29 Nov29 November 11:14

        I once mentioned the environmental impact and social conscious aspect of tier point runs in an article and got absolutely slated here! I have no doubt the majority are pro reducing carbon emissions, but like many, won’t extend that to their own behaviours too much.

        • Rob says:

          29 Nov29 November 11:23

          The logic of that, though, is that if a flight is cheap enough to work as a tier point run then it is clearly going to be half-empty in the first place, so your marginal presence doesn’t make a lot of difference.

          As was noted elsewhere, the ‘real’ quick win is to scrap all premium seats and make all flights 100% economy to reduce CO2 per passenger. Good luck with that though – you’ll see a slide in IAG’s Capital Markets Day pack where they show off how successful they are being in increasing the number of premium seats per aircraft to fly them with fewer passengers.

        • His Holyness says:

          29 Nov29 November 12:51

          But you said below even a tiny change of 1% makes a difference? A flight having I class open isn’t indicative that it’s empty, but the way they sell the seats to maximise revenue. TP runs are booked months in advance. That’s as absurd as frequent flyers saying “the flight was gonna fly anyway”.
          By the logic of the 1% we need to stop incentivising flying with FFPs, ban private aviation. As it stands, the argument for the anthropogenic climate and ecological emergency is nothing other than good business. A hell of a lot of money is made out of dancing on a pinhead but really doing very little.

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