The UK government has confirmed that the sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) mandate will come into force in January 2025, which sets out plans to ensure “air travel is fit for the future”.

In September 2023, the Department for Transport (DfT) announced a revenue certainty mechanism to kickstart the SAF industry. To make this happen the DfT introduced an SAF mandate. This will require at least 10% of all jet fuel in flights taking off from the UK to come from sustainable feedstocks by 2030.

The DfT has today confirmed that the SAF mandate will come into force in January 2025.

SAFs are typically derived by combining jet fuel with alternatives such as biofuels or recycled oils from industrial food facilities to achieve carbon savings of up to 70%.

In November 2023, the first-ever transatlantic flight between London and New York powered entirely with SAF took off from Heathrow.

The SAF mandate will provide an incentive to produce the fuel via price support from tradable certificates with a monetary...