Onboard ‘Flight100’ – the first transatlantic flight powered by 100% sustainable aviation fuel

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On Tuesday, I was one of an exclusive group of 110 people on board Virgin Atlantic’s ‘Flight100’.

If you haven’t been following along, this was a demonstration flight operated by Virgin Atlantic in conjunction with Boeing, Rolls-Royce and four other companies and universities to prove that current aircraft are able to fly on 100% sustainable aviation fuel. A few weeks ago, I visited Rolls-Royce in Derby to learn more about their testing program.

The Department for Transport, which kicked off the challenge, provided £1 million in funding which Virgin matched.

Since winning the competition to operate the flight in November 2022, Virgin Atlantic and its partners have been beavering away to make it a reality, but also to ensure that the flight would be as safe as any other commercial flight.

Onboard 'Flight100' - the first transatlantic flight powered by 100% sustainable aviation fuel

As this was a demonstration flight, no paying passengers or cargo were allowed on board. In fact, the Civil Aviation Authority would only permit a maximum of 120 people on board who had to have a specific interest in the flight itself. That included staff from all the consortium partners as well as a small selection of broadcasters and journalists such as myself to document the experience.

Whilst we boarded the flight just after 10am on Tuesday, work has been underway for some time to prepare the aircraft. Holly Boyd-Boland, VP Corporate Development and Sustainability at Virgin Atlantic, told me:

“It’s been a process over the last six to eight months, where we have been identifying the fuel and doing a lot of testing, primarily through our partners at Rolls-Royce and in collaboration with Sheffield University.

But getting ready for today and going back a week or so, the fuel arrived from Europe and the US at the beginning of last week and was blended on the Isle of Grain by AirBP last Tuesday. Last Thursday, it was tankered in two specific bowsers up to Heathrow. On Friday we fueled the engines, which took a couple of batches. So we fueled the initial, then did some additional testing, then we fueled the whole thing up. And between Friday and now the aircraft’s been under pretty tight maintenance watch to make sure that it was fit for purpose.”

The fuel used yesterday was a specific blend of two different types of sustainable aviation fuel, in order to create what is called a ‘drop in’ fuel. This means that no modifications need to be made to the aircraft in order for it to fly: it can be used just like normal jet fuel, without having to recertify the engines and fuel systems. Said Corneel Koster, Virgin’s Chief Customer & Operating Officer:

“We knew from full testing on the ground that this blend, which is 88% HEFA, basically fatty acids and waste oils; and 12%, synthetic, aromatic kerosene, which is made from waste from corn. This combination is unique. But we tested this extensively on Rolls Royce on the ground for an entire full flight profile of a flight to New York. And then the next day we tested the normal Jet A fuel and saw that it’s absolutely comparable.”

Maria Laine, President United Kingdom, Ireland & Nordic region for Boeing added:

“That’s the beauty of sustainable aviation fuels. It truly is a drop-in solution. That’s one of the purposes of this flight, to serve as proof that we can easily slide it into commercial operations so that no major impacts to infrastructure or anything else needs to be carried out.”

Nonetheless, Virgin Atlantic was still keen to run a little dress rehearsal before the main event on Tuesday, particularly given the exceptionally high interest in the story. Corneel said:

“We were fully certified and ready to fly today, without having done it before. But look, quite clearly the world is watching today. We wanted to make sure that everything goes right. So we de-risked the project and some of our ground procedures by doing a very short, very quiet flight on Saturday as a dress rehearsal, to go above and beyond and to make sure that everything was ready for Tuesday. It was completely uneventful!”

The dress rehearsal paid off. VS100 took off smoothly at 11:49am as expected, and for those of us on board it felt like any other flight to New York. From the flight itself it was indistinguishable that we were running on sustainable aviation fuel. The only giveaway was the excitement on board and the cheer after take-off!

Flight100 wasn’t just testing sustainable aviation fuels, however. Virgin Atlantic also incorporated a suite of fuel-saving measures including one of the most direct routings from London to New York that’s possible, saving a predicted 1,000kg+ of jetfuel.

Other measures included more efficient ascent and descent procedures and single-engine taxiing at JFK. In total, an estimated 3,242kg of fuel were saved, equivalent to just over 10,000kg of CO2.

After 7:16 hours, we came in to land in an overcast and ice-cold JFK Airport, with the entire flight having operated as expected.

I’d be lying if I said the flight was eventful: as I mentioned above, to us it felt like any other regular service between London and New York. But that’s the beauty of sustainable aviation fuel: it can reduce our carbon footprint by over 70% on existing infrastructure and without needing to re-invent the wheel. This makes it the only practical solution for decarbonising aviation in the next few decades before future technologies such as hydrogen or battery flight become a commercial reality.

What’s next? Supply continues to be a major problem, with SAF currently contributing less than 0.1% of all aviation fuel globally. Scaling up production will be key. Just to get to Virgin Atlantic’s target of 10% by 2030 will require a hundred-fold increase.

Sadly, SAF production in the UK is extremely thin on the ground with no dedicated SAF refineries in operation. The fuel used for our flight was imported from the EU and US. At present, five commercial plants are due to start construction by 2025

If everything goes to plan, though, Virgin Atlantic will be flying with 10%+ SAF in just over six years.

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This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

SteveJ says:

29 Nov29 November 08:15

How much of the saving was due to the non-fuel factors like more direct routing ascent/descent procedures and single engine taxiing?

All of those are available now without the massive investment needed to increase SAF production.
- Rhys says:
  
  29 Nov29 November 09:15
  
  The majority of the saving is obviously the SAF. I have the numbers somewhere, will try and find them.
  - kiran_mk2 says:
    
    29 Nov29 November 10:49
    
    That would be really good Rhys. I think Virgin have done a poor job giving out the figures. The real story here is how much CO2 reduction came from using SAF rather than the other changes and giving the headline figure with all the caveats (routing, ascent/descent profiles etc) just opens the door for people to pick apart and complain about the figures rather than appreciate what has been accomplished.
Ant Heather says:

29 Nov29 November 08:24

This is window dressing plain and simple. There isn’t enough land on earth to grow the plants to make make the whole fleet sustainable, unless we don’t want to feed everyone anymore. We need to focus on Ammonia, was that mentioned?
- Alan Vickers says:
  
  29 Nov29 November 08:28
  
  Spot on Ant.
  
  Aviation is responsible for 2% of global carbon emissions , all this BS whilst the main polluters are left untouched.
  - Rob says:
    
    29 Nov29 November 08:33
    
    I suspect you don’t bother using your recycling bin at home and just throw all your trash into the same sack, on the basis that your personal contribution to UK waste is too tiny to make any difference?
    
    One thing you learn quickly when you run a business is the power of small increments. If we can do something to increase readership by 1% we do it. If we can do something to boost revenue per reader by 1%, we do it. It all makes a virtually unnoticeable difference in itself, but they stack and suddenly you’ve grown readers by 10%, you’ve grown revenue per reader by 10% and you’ve got 21% more income – all from stacking tiny changes. Climate change has to be addressed the same way.
    - Alan Vickers says:
      
      29 Nov29 November 08:42
      
      How wrong you are Rob
      
      I use public transport (even caught the train to the HfP soirée at St.Pancras) as I don’t own a car anymore. I was born in the 60s so recycling is not a new phenomenon for people of my age. I do as much as I can, you mention UK waste and again I don’t need to remind you that on the world stage the UK is responsible for under 3% of global emissions. We both agree that something needs to be done, but we need to focus on the main polluters around the world.
    - Can2 says:
      
      29 Nov29 November 08:44
      
      It has a name, Rob: the tragedy of commons.
    - Dev says:
      
      29 Nov29 November 08:48
      
      But living in the developing world, by sorting out the rubbish you would be depriving at least few people of an income.
      
      (Yes, the job of going though someone’s rubbish is … pretty rubbish, but it puts food on some peoples tables!)
    - AJA says:
      
      29 Nov29 November 09:07
      
      @Rob, you do your readers a disservice when you accuse them of not recycling. That wasn’t the point that was being made.
      
      Where I live it is compulsory to recycle and the council provides the bins to do so and as a result we recycle. Some of us do it anyway but most are forced to do so. Even so the numbers of households who do food recycling is very low, less than 10%, despite all being given the food waste bin.
      
      Perhaps if the food waste recycling actually resulted in lower energy bills more people would do so?
      
      It’s the same thing with this flight, it’s research that has proved it can be done. And that’s wondeful. But let’s be honest. It is only a tiny step in the right direction and only if it can be proved that there is the capability to scale up production at a reasonable cost. It’s no point in doing this if in reality the costs of doing so outweigh the benefits. Many good ideas never get through to production. Does that mean no one should try to invent anything? Of course not.
      - Mark says:
        
        29 Nov29 November 09:49
        
        It might be compulsory for you to recycle, but do you know what that council does with that sorting you’ve done for them?
        
        You’d be shocked to find out!
- Can2 says:
  
  29 Nov29 November 08:43
  
  Some things can be both PR and good for decarbonisation. Living in wild capitalism, it seems to me that it is the best we can possibly have.
- Chris W says:
  
  29 Nov29 November 09:11
  
  This arguing is one of the reasons its far too late to save the world from climate change. Rather than taking the immediate, drastic action needed, we argue about whether there’s any point taking any action.
- Rui N. says:
  
  29 Nov29 November 09:12
  
  Fuel from plants is now allowed in the UK or the EU.
- Rhys says:
  
  29 Nov29 November 09:16
  
  Current SAF uses waste feedstocks, you’re right. But future production is already looking towards “power to liquid” which combines hydrogen from water with carbon from the atmosphere to create hydrocarbon molecules. You would literally be producing it from air.
  - kiran_mk2 says:
    
    29 Nov29 November 10:58
    
    Exactly this. There will be a cycle whereby an industrial plant produces CO2 which is captured and transformed first into basic chemical building blocks and then into specific hydrocarbons. Look up the spin-out company LanzaJet for one example of a company developing this technology right now.
    
    All technology transformations run on an S curve and we are at the beginning of this. Progress will be slow and then suddenly accelerate. Think back to the Noughties: I had a smartphone years before the iPhone came out – it was clunky, wasn’t as desirable or easy to use as the mainstream phones and a lot of people probably thought “what’s the point of that, it’s never be popular?” but here we are 20 years later and you would struggle to buy a non-smartphone.
  - Numpty says:
    
    29 Nov29 November 13:43
    
    Hydrogen fuel is nothing new but it requires a massive amount of energy and is therefore very costly. The new term is ‘green hydrogen’ where the energy for production is provided from renewable sources (preferably owned by the producer, and local to the manufacturer, to then manage the energy cost). But most predictions for bulk hydrogen fuel production and adoption for the UK see it as being 10 years away.
HM007 says:

29 Nov29 November 08:27

So fly fuel from the US to fly sustainably back to the US! Looks like a lot of smoke and mirrors marketing
- Rhys says:
  
  29 Nov29 November 09:17
  
  How do you think Boeing, Rolls-Royce etc test their aircraft? 🙂
  
  Unless of course you’re saying you’d be happy to step on a plane that has never been put through its paces in real life!
  - Manya says:
    
    29 Nov29 November 12:49
    
    I think the comment is more to do with the journey the fuel has to make simply to get here in the first place.
- Dubious says:
  
  30 Nov30 November 23:49
  
  I would assume it came by boat.
Jill Kinkell says:

29 Nov29 November 08:37

FFS all this moaning , criticism and negativity. It’s a start.
- Mark says:
  
  29 Nov29 November 08:53
  
  Exactly Jill.
  
  Makes me laugh, half of the so called eco packaging, recycling, save the world stuff is all smoke and mirrors and does more harm than good. A huge majority of household recycling ends up in landfill or is shipped abroad which then ends up in landfill or being burnt and causes more damage than processing it at home.
  
  I could go on, the list is endless but that’s not what this website is about.
- Alex Sm says:
  
  29 Nov29 November 08:55
  
  Many HfP readers and especially commentators are a predators gang alas… but it’s a brilliant article and kudos to Rhys for doing it and to Rob for supporting it and giving it a prominent editorial space! 🙏🏻
Charlie says:

29 Nov29 November 08:40

What a publicity stunt and not even one that will talk to anyone who actually researches the figures and sees just how sill this really all is. Still, very Virgin style.
- Rob says:
  
  29 Nov29 November 08:51
  
  The flight was the idea of the UK Government who put up £1m to fund it. No idea why BA didn’t want to do it but BA is fully behind it if you look at their messages of goodwill on social media yesterday.
  - JDB says:
    
    29 Nov29 November 09:09
    
    Virgin had to match the government’s £1m, perhaps BA didn’t fancy that!
  - AJA says:
    
    29 Nov29 November 09:16
    
    BA probably couldn’t spare the aircraft given how it struggles to operate flights.
    
    Can you imagine the negative reaction if it cancelled a flight in order to run this one flight?
    - Kieran says:
      
      29 Nov29 November 13:37
      
      Are you for real? An hoc cancellations happen all the time. Same with Virgin who ‘cancelled’ the VS3 to accommodate the Vs100. No drama when they just move people to another flight the same day.
  - Kieran says:
    
    29 Nov29 November 13:38
    
    This article has zero to do with BA but was waiting for the moment they got mentioned!
Dev says:

29 Nov29 November 08:42

I bet thé manufacturing /refining cost of producing such fuel will be so ridiculously high that it’s not sustainable in such a cut throat industry!

(I’ll admit, I’ve not done any research into the matter but assumption is made on the fact that the Uk pays nearly £12 an hour for minimum wage).
- Rui N. says:
  
  29 Nov29 November 09:14
  
  Everyone will have to do it, so it will be costs bourne by everyone and no one will gain any competitive advantage.
- Rhys says:
  
  29 Nov29 November 09:18
  
  Everything is expensive when you start doing it. Obviously the goal is to bring costs down as you scale the technology up.
Mark says:

29 Nov29 November 08:49

Jesus Christ! It’s not about whether this flight was environmentally friendly it was about showing it can be done!
Alex Sm says:

29 Nov29 November 08:51

As my uni teacher used to say there is always someone who is ‘Forster’ and here we go again… 🥇

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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