SAF Used At An Increasing Rate

To promote the use of Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF), Daher—the French industrial conglomerate with foci across the aerospace, defense, nuclear, and automotive industrial sectors—announced on 23 June that the TBM-960 and Kodiak-100 the company displayed at 2023’s Paris Air Show had been fueled with a blend of SAF and conventional Jet-A1.

The two aircraft—leased from Daher customers—benefited from the availability of SAF-blended jet-fuel at Le Bourget Airport (LBG), at which the Paris Air Show has been held on odd-numbered years since 1953.

The SAF at LBG is provided by TotalEnergies, the French multinational integrated energy and petroleum company, and is synthesized from waste and residues sourced from the circular economy. A neologism coined by activists and politicians for purpose of ascribing undue import to the age-old business acquisition, use, and divestment, the term circular economy denotes “a model of production and consumption involving sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials and products as long as possible.”

TotalEnergies contends the SAF produced at its La Mède (South of France) and Oudalle (Seine Maritime) facilities lowers CO2 emissions by up to ninety-percent (compared to petroleum jet-fuel) over the course of an aero-engine’s life-cycle.

Daher’s 2023 Paris Air-Show static-display aircraft were fueled with a 1:1 ratio of TotalEnergies’s SAF and conventional, petroleum Jet-A1.

Daher’s flight operations—which include production, testing, training, maintenance, and delivery/liaison activities from Southern-France’s Tarbes-Lourdes-Pyrenees Airport (LDE)—make use of petroleum jet fuel blended with Neste’s MY Sustainable Aviation Fuel to ratios as high as 1:1.

Daher Aircraft Division senior vice-president Nicolas Chabbert set forth his company—notwithstanding the low-availability of such—is fully-committed to the use of sustainable aviation fuels. Mr. Chabbert opined the energy sector’s ultimate goal ought be ensuring SAF is available over the entirety of global airports.

Chabbert stated: “The example we set to use SAF when it’s available is already inspiring despite high-prices and tax differences. FlyingSmart, our TBM distributor in the UK and Ireland is using SAF at its Biggin Hill airport base. Avex, TBM distributor in South Western U.S.A., is selling SAF at its Camarillo, California Fixed-Base Operation. And we expect others to follow. The decarbonization of aviation is definitely on the move.”

FMI: www.daher.com