Air France to match voluntary customer contributions for sustainable aviation fuel during the Paris Olympics
By Antynet Ford
Air France, an official partner of the Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics, will be matching the contribution of each customer’s subscription to the “Environment-sustainable Aviation Fuels” option during the Paris 2024 Games.
The promotion is effective March 13, 2024, and applies to all bookings for travel between July 18 and September 9, 2024, to destinations in mainland France and French Polynesia.
In a bid to reduce the environmental impact of its flight activities, Air France introduced the Environment-sustainable Aviation Fuels option in 2022 allowing customers to contribute a subscription to facilitate the use of sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) in its flights, including cargo hauls.
The subscription allows customers to invest in the reduction of the carbon footprint of Air France flights. Customers are free to choose their level of investment, with a guarantee that their contribution will be exclusively used to purchase SAFs, cleaner alternatives to conventional jet fuel.
The campaign is part of Air France’s ambitious decarbonization strategy, which targets a 30% reduction in CO2 emissions per passenger/km by 2030, compared with 2019.
Called the Air France Act, this program is based on several levers:
- fleet renewal, by using the latest generation of aircraft, the Airbus A350 and A220, reducing fuel consumption by 20% to 25% and reducing the noise footprint of Air France flights by more than a third. Every year, Air France invests over one billion euros in fleet renewal. By 2030, the airline’s fleet will comprise 80% of new generation aircraft (compared to 21% currently, and 45% by the end of 2025).
- the increased use of sustainable aviation fuels,
- operational measures including eco-piloting (taxiing on one engine, direct flight paths in liaison with air traffic control, continuous descents),
- the development of intermodality (combining a train trip and a flight in a single booking).
Subscribing customers to the Environment-sustainable Aviation Fuels option receive a third-party audited report linking the number of SAFs purchased to the traffic volume, with an indication of the resulting cut in carbon emissions.
In 2023, the Air France-KLM Group was the world’s leading user of sustainable aviation fuel for the second year running.
Made from non-fossil resources such as used oils or agricultural waste, SAFs are a substitute for fossil fuels.
They also meet strict sustainability criteria, as they do not compete with food chains and are not made from palm oil.
The SAFs can also be blended with conventional fuel without modifying aircraft, engines or logistics and storage infrastructures.
By 2030, Air France aims to incorporate at least 10% of sustainable aviation fuels on all its flights worldwide, compared with 1% today. This target goes beyond the European incorporation mandates. For accelerated impact, Air France intends to support the development of SAF production facilities around the world.
