Air New Zealand has made a purchase of 30 million liters of
sustainable aviation fuel manufactured by Neste, which the carrier said is its
largest SAF purchase to date.
The fuel, manufactured in Singapore from waste and raw
materials such as animal fat waste and used cooking oil, will be uplifted by
Air New Zealand at airports in Los Angeles and San Francisco through February
2026. The carrier said the fuel has up to 80 percent lower carbon emissions
across its life cycle compared with fossil-fuel-made jet fuel.
The 30-million-liter purchase represents 1.6 percent of Air
New Zealand's total fuel supply for the 2025 fiscal year, which runs July
through June. That "is still a very small proportion of our total fuel
use, but it's four times more than we carried last year," which will help
the carrier reach its SAF target for the year, according to Air New Zealand
chief sustainability and corporate affairs officer Kiri Hannifin.
"I am thrilled with the trajectory," Hannifin said
in a statement. "Like all airlines, we urgently need to move away from our
high reliance on fossil fuels as quickly as we can."
Air New Zealand earlier this year announced a
purchase of 9 million liters of SAF from Neste, as well as a
half-million liters from Chinese firm EcoCeres. The carrier has set a
target of using 10 percent SAF by 2030, and it was "delighted" that
two recent feasibility studies in which it invested indicated SAF production
was possible in New Zeeland from production of feedstocks such as woody biomass,
according to Hannifin.
Air New Zealand's SAF usage is trending above the industry
average. The
International Air Transport Association last week reported that total SAF
production volume in 2024 was 1 million metric tons, double last year's
production but below its forecasted production of 1.5 million metric tons. SAF
accounted for 0.3 percent of global jet fuel this year and should account for
0.7 percent next year, according to IATA.