“It’s a really important flight to highlight the progress that’s being made, the need for more SAF and the critical role they can play in decarbonizing aviation,” he said.

Sustainable aviation fuels are a broad category that includes biofuels made from raw materials such as corn, animal fat, algae, municipal trash and sewage.

To do that, the industry will have to develop new technologies that will allow planes to run on electric batteries, liquid hydrogen or some other as-yet-unproven fuel source.

To operate the flight powered only by SAF, Virgin Atlantic mixed a fat-based biofuel with a bit of plant-based “synthetic aromatic kerosene,” a form of sustainable aviation fuel made from plant sugars that has the aromatic compounds needed to keep a jet engine running smoothly.

Chen says it suffers from a chicken-and-egg problem: Airlines don’t want to buy SAF because it can be several times more expensive than standard aviation fuel.

Meanwhile, the World Economic Forum has led an industry push to create carbon credits based on SAF sales.

Saved 80% of original text.