The flight marks the primary time a industrial airline has flown lengthy haul totally on sustainable aviation gas.
A Virgin Atlantic passenger jet flying from London to New York powered by one hundred pc sustainable aviation gas (SAF) took off on Tuesday, with the aviation world carefully monitoring the flight.
It marks the primary time a industrial airline has flown lengthy haul on one hundred pc SAF.
The flight follows the profitable transatlantic crossing by a Gulfstream G600 enterprise jet utilizing the identical gas final week.
Because the world decarbonises, airways are banking on gas constructed from waste to cut back their emissions by as much as 70 %, enabling them to maintain working earlier than electrical and hydrogen-powered air journey turns into a actuality within the a long time to return.
Tuesday’s flight, which took off at 11:49GMT and arrives at New York’s John F Kennedy Worldwide Airport at round 19:50GMT, is operated by a Virgin Boeing 787 powered by Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines.
Virgin Atlantic’s billionaire founder Richard Branson, the airline’s chief govt Shai Weiss, and Britain’s Transport Minister Mark Harper had been reportedly all on board.
There have been no paying passengers or cargo on board what Virgin dubbed Flight100.
SAF is essential to lowering emissions
The flight comes days earlier than the beginning of COP28 local weather talks in Dubai on Thursday.
SAF is already utilized in jet engines as a part of a mix with conventional kerosene, however after profitable floor assessments, Virgin and its companions Rolls-Royce, Boeing, BP and others received permission to fly utilizing solely SAF.
Aviation accounts for an estimated 2-3 % of world carbon emissions. SAF is essential in the direction of lowering these emissions, however it’s expensive and accounts for lower than 0.1 % of whole international jet gas in use at present.
The gas used to energy Tuesday’s flight is generally constructed from used cooking oil and waste animal fats blended with a small quantity of artificial fragrant kerosene constructed from waste corn, Virgin Atlantic mentioned.
Many European airways – together with Virgin-owned British Airways, and Air France – have mentioned they wish to be utilizing 10 % SAF by 2030, and the trade’s objective of “internet zero” emissions by 2050 depends on that share rising to 65 %.
But the 2030 goal seems to be difficult given SAF’s small volumes and its excessive value, proper now about three to 5 instances as a lot as common jet gas.
