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Virgin Atlantic says that the SAF alone will cut the flight’s emissions by 70%, but it is also adopting other measures to limit environmental impact and increase efficiency, such as operating the taxi phase (when the plane goes from gate to runway) with just one engine, and limiting the amount of potable water onboard to what is strictly necessary, reducing weight.

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The flight will use a total of 70 tons of SAF, mostly made from waste cooking oils and animal fat, plus a small portion coming from corn waste used to produce animal feed. Large twin-engine jets have performed flights using 100% SAF on both engines before, but these flights involved military aircraft. Days earlier, business jet maker Gulfstream completed what it billed as the world’s first transatlantic flight using 100% SAF. Last week, Emirates powered one of the four engines of an Airbus A380 superjumbo with it.

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The flight is the latest in a series of recent tests involving 100% SAF. To operate the flight, a special permit was issued by the UK Civil Aviation Authority, which came after a series of technical reviews including ground tests with 100% SAF on the same type of engines used during the flight. However, while Virgin Atlantic says that using SAF will reduce the aircraft’s emissions by 70%, critics say the flight is little more than a gimmick, and that the kind of SAF used by the plane will do little to clean up aviation’s climate impact.Ĭurrent regulations prohibit airlines from using a blend of more than 50% SAF on commercial flights, as engine manufacturers and aviation authorities work together to ensure that these new fuels are safe to use in higher concentrations.

Traveling from London Heathrow to New York’s JFK, the flight, which is meant purely as a demonstration and will not carry any paying passengers (although it will carry scientists and media), is operated by Virgin Atlantic using a Boeing 787, with both its engines running on the fuel. For the first time, a transatlantic flight operated by a commercial airline will be powered by 100% Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) - a type of plane fuel that bears the promise of a much lower climate impact than traditional ones.

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