Airbus offers free 5% SAF for customers’ ferry flights departing Toulouse, Hamburg delivery centers

The first airline to benefit from Airbus' new offer of 5 percent SAF for free was Indigo, whose new A320neo took off from Toulouse July 3 headed for Delhi, India. (Photo: Airbus)

Airbus announced July 7 that it is offering up to 5 percent sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) free of charge to customers departing from the Toulouse, France, and Hamburg, Germany, delivery centers.

The first airline to benefit from this offer was Indigo, whose new A320neo took off from Toulouse July 3 headed for Delhi, India.

At their discretion, customers ferrying aircraft from Airbus’ Tianjin, China, and Mobile, Alabama, delivery centers to their home base are already offered varying concentrations of SAF.

To achieve this objective, Airbus has secured nearly 180,000 gallons of SAF with different blend ratios, ranging from 30 percent to 49 percent.

This will create around 475,500 gallons of blended SAF for 2023 alone.

“Naturally Airbus’ ambition goes beyond 2023,” said Julien Manhes, Airbus’ head of SAF and fuel efficiency. “We’re working to secure SAF supplies into next year and beyond, for ferry flights departing all our delivery centers. We’re sending a strong signal to our customers, the fuel ecosystem and the wider sector—SAF has arrived.”

Airbus stated that its ambition is to play an active role in promoting SAF as a credible and efficient lever for decarbonization.

“Being a leader means taking concrete actions, including when accompanying our customers,” the aerospace company stated.

Already this year, Airbus has committed to using 10 percent SAF in its commercial aircraft and helicopter internal operations.

Airbus recently announced a partnership with LanzaJet to support building SAF facilities that will use LanzaJet’s proprietary alcohol-to-jet (ATJ) technology pathway and accelerate the certification and adoption of 100 percent drop-in SAF, which would allow existing aircraft to fly without fossil fuels.

Yet another step to investigate and support certification of 100 percent drop-in SAF, the partnership follows last year’s announcement with renewables producer Neste that sees the two companies cooperate to accelerate the transition to SAF. Airbus is fully engaged in boosting SAF production worldwide.

Airbus said it aims to make its entire product portfolio capable of flying with 100 percent SAF by 2030, acting as a catalyst to ready the ecosystem for a 10 percent global uptake by 2030.