Although the use of increasingly fuel-efficient, modern aircraft has meant that the amount of fuel burned per passenger has dropped by 24 per cent between 2005 and 2017, the huge worldwide growth in air traffic, and the ease with which we now fly, means we are all on average flying further and more often.<\/p>\n
So, while large passenger planes crossing the Atlantic using only sustainable aviation fuel sounds like good news for the environment. It seems that you shouldn\u2019t get too excited about conscious-free flying just yet. \u00a0Sustainable aviation fuel is made from\u00a0non-petroleum feedstocks\u00a0<\/a>such as forestry and agricultural waste, used cooking oil, carbon captured from the air and green hydrogen. They do not use food crops (such as palm oil), prime agricultural land or freshwater. In the case of this flight, it was powered by 88 per cent waste fats and 12 per cent the wastes from corn production. Although this was the first commercial sized passenger aircraft to cross the Atlantic using only sustainable aircraft fuel, planes have been partially using sustainable aviation fuel for some years now by utilising a blend of between 10 and 50 per cent sustainable aviation fuel with traditional petroleum fuels. Even so, sustainable aviation fuel still only accounts for 0.1 per cent of the total amount of aviation fuel used around the world.<\/p>\n