SAF flight ‘milestone’ challenged


Ian Taylor Travel Weekly Sustainability Summit


Virgin Atlantic’s flight between Heathrow and New York using 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) last week was hailed as “a milestone” by industry leaders, but that view is contested by aviation environmental groups. Rob Griggs, policy and


public affairs director at industry body Airlines UK, insisted: “It was a significant milestone. It showed a glimpse of the future. It demonstrated this technology works, that it’s safe, but it also highlighted there are huge challenges.” He told the Travel Weekly


Sustainability Summit in London: “We owe huge congratulations to Virgin Atlantic and the consortium that made it happen. SAF is going to have to do the heavy lifting in reducing aviation emissions, particularly for the next couple of decades before hydrogen and other technologies come in. “To make that happen we need


volumes of SAF available at a cost that airlines can afford.” However, Cait Hewitt, policy


director at the Aviation Environment Federation (AEF), denied the flight provided “a glimpse of the future”, saying: “I wish it did. I wish it was possible to have some kind of green fuel we could just drop into aircraft


Poon Tip: Travel’s comfort zone focus threatens its future


Juliet Dennis Travel Weekly Sustainability Summit


G Adventures founder Bruce Poon Tip believes the travel industry risks jeopardising its future if it continues to promote holidays offering the “comforts of home”. Speaking at the Travel Weekly


Sustainability Summit, Poon Tip said the pandemic had “increased our addiction to convenience”, creating a generation used to being at home, while social media had “changed the way people consume” travel. In an appeal to travel companies


to promote purposeful travel to the destinations and communities


4 7 DECEMBER 2023


they visit, he argued that focusing too heavily on the amenities, such as levels of accommodation and entertainment, had put the industry “in a dangerous place”. “Everyone is trying to create that


experience that makes you feel like you have never left home,” he said. “It’s no longer travel. When you


strip any relevance of the destination for the sake of the comfort zone, it’s a very dangerous place to be.” He criticised the commoditisation


of hotel accommodation, such as offering the same standards of comfort consumers enjoy at home. “We are convincing people they don’t need to leave comfort [behind]


when they travel,” he said. “You should leave where you are comfortable. The comfort zone and comfort are two different things. When we make people feel like they’ve never left home, it’s a dangerous place to be for our industry.” Poon Tip likened it to the


“McDonald’s effect”, where a consistent product and service is available in all countries. “This is where we’re getting


to in travel: creating consistency so people don’t feel like they’ve left home,” he said. He stressed it was an important


issue because of the impact of the pandemic on the next generation.


We’re decades


away from a genuine zero-emissions flight across the Atlantic


and carry on flying without worrying about climate change. We have no objection to this as a scientific test to look at how this fuel operates. [But] we object to presentation of this flight as a turning point, as showing we’re close to ‘guilt-free flying’. Because we’re decades away from a genuine zero-emissions flight that could cross the Atlantic.” The fuel on last week’s flight was made mostly from used cooking oil


and Hewitt noted: “That is a waste already in use in other applications. By definition, a waste-based fuel can’t be scaled up sustainably. We have 99.9% kerosene used in the aviation industry globally. Less than 0.1% is any kind of alternative fuel. It’s going to be really hard to scale that up.” Griggs conceded the fuel


used “is the least scalable SAF and probably has less lifecycle benefits [than alternatives].” But he argued: “The SAFs


we want to make in the UK are second-generation fuels from waste carbons and other types of organic waste that are harder


to process but more scalable.” i Business, page 55


Bruce Poon Tip “We have a whole Generation Z


who realise everything they can do from home,” he said. “If we promote that more, we will slowly erode our own industry.” Poon Tip, whose documentary


The Last Tourist premiered in the UK in May, said consumers had become “customers of culture rather than contributors to it”. “It’s the opposite of what travel should be,” he added. Poon Tip described travel as a


way to “transform lives” by helping communities in destinations. He added: “We [G Adventures]


define sustainability as community development and communities can benefit from tourism.”


travelweekly.co.uk


PICTURE: Steve Dunlop


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