Delta’s big plans for sustainable aviation fuel need incentives up and down supply chain

Delta Air Lines pledged in 2021 to use sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF, for at least 10 percent of the fuel filling its planes by 2030.

Since then, it has funded a production hub in Minnesota and signed long-term contracts for a supply of 200 million gallons, about half of what Delta needs to reach the 2030 goal. 

SAF can be made from feedstocks including agricultural waste, algae, animal fats, corn and captured carbon dioxide. It can be blended with conventional jet fuel at a ratio of up to 50 percent. The biggest problem with SAF continues to be a lack of supply.

Still, even though it’s more expensive — $2 to $4 per gallon more than traditional fuel — it’s the most promising technology available today for cutting aviation emissions, said Gail Grimmett, senior vice president of sustainability performance and strategic partnerships at Delta. 

“Let’s be clear, 90 percent of our emissions come out of the back of the airplane,” she told me during an interview at VERGE in late October. “Our Scope 1 is massive. Anything beyond Scope 1 is like a rounding error.” 

Source: Delta Air Lines

Delta operates more than 4,000 flights daily on six continents. Grimmett, who has been with Delta for more than two decades in business development, policy and other leadership roles, is spearheading the relationships to help Delta reach its net-zero goals.

Delta is using only a fraction of SAF for its fuel needs at the moment. In 2023, Delta blended 3.5 million gallons of SAF from Neste and Shell Aviation into its fuel supply, about double what it bought in 2022. Those purchases avoided about 32,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent from its operations in Amsterdam, London, Los Angeles, Paris and San Francisco.

Delta anticipates using 12 million gallons during 2024.

“It’s going to take more than offtake agreements to make this happen,” Grimmett said. “We need every single member of the value chain. We need farmers to be incentivized. We need to the government to come up with policies to do the incentives. We need investment in infrastructure to be able to build the right refineries, and we’ve made progress on each one of those.”

Policy advocacy a priority

Like other airlines, Delta is pushing for state and federal incentives that make SAF production more economical and push prices lower for airlines. It was a founder of Americans for Clean Aviation Fuels, which also represents the interests of farmers, fuel producers and aircraft manufacturers. (Delta is the only airline publicly listed as a member.)

Delta is not a member of the Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance, which includes companies with big business travel needs such as Disney, McKinsey and Microsoft, but it is part of Airlines for America, which advocates for SAF and other next-generation technologies.

“I will walk out on a ledge here, but I speak for all airlines — our competitors and colleagues — when I say this isn’t a competition amongst us,” Grimmett said. “I mean, we’ve gotta work together on this. We’ve been loud and clear that we’re all in on this.”

Delta’s decision to locate a SAF production hub in Minnesota will benefit from a tax credit of $1.50 per gallon for all SAF produced and sold in the state between June 30, 2024, and July 1, 2030. To qualify, the SAF has to be made from biomass and produce a life-cycle emissions reduction benefit of at least 50 percent, among other requirements. Bank of America, Deloitte and Ecolab have also pledged to buy SAF that’s produced at the Minnesota hub, starting in 2025.

Illinois, Michigan and Nebraska are also offering (or proposing to offer) SAF-related incentives, and SAF is also being considered in low-carbon fuel standards being developed in California, Oregon and Washington.

40 million gallons in fuel savings

Alongside its SAF investments, Delta’s Carbon Council — a group of cross-function leaders with key performance indicators related to reducing emissions — is working on a wide range of efforts to improve the airline’s fuel efficiency. The group coordinated fuel savings of more than 21 million gallons in 2022 and 2023, and it’s working toward 14 million gallons more this year. The cuts are approaching 40 million gallons.

“To put it in perspective, 40 million gallons of fuel is the equivalent of flying all the way around the world twice a day, every day, for a year,” Grimmett said.

The council considers three factors when making decisions about what to prioritize: the planes being flown, the routing methods used, and the fuel being used. Measures that contributed to Delta’s reductions in the past two years:

• New navigational databases and routing, including a policy that will slow planes down if they’re way ahead of schedule.
• Reductions in the weight associated with catering, including new lightweight carts, new food provisioning approaches.
• Water conservation measures, which also contribute to lightweighting. 

“It’s something that we just have to keep looking at,” Grimmett said. “There’s a lot of sexy out there; there’s just not a lot of meaningful.”

SAF won’t be the long-term answer

Grimmett works closely with Delta Chief Sustainability Officer Amelia DeLuca. Both report to Peter Carter, Delta’s executive vice president of external affairs. Updates on their strategy are represented to Delta’s board on a quarterly basis and a focus over the past two years has been embedding sustainability performance metrics, such as fuel efficiency, into other operational measures.

That includes investments in new aircraft. In January, Delta ordered 20 Airbus 350-1000 widebody airplanes for delivery starting in 2026. The new aircraft are 20 percent more fuel-efficient than the ones being retired. In 2022, Delta added 69 airplanes that were, on average, 25 percent more fuel-efficient per seat mile.

Some other bets:

• A demonstration program with Boeing and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration focused on new single-aisle, braced-wing plane design that could cut emissions by up to 30 percent.
• Repairs to engine fan blades on Delta’s 757 fleet as part of the Federal Aviation Administration’s CLEEN III program, using a ceramic coating that could help save up to 1 million gallons of fuel annually. 
• Ongoing tests with Joby, which makes a small electric plane that can take off and land vertically. Delta plans to introduce a service for home-to-airport services starting in New York City, after Joby receives FAA certification.

“I look at the future saying it’s going to take revolutionary aircraft,” Grimmett said. “It might look different, it might weigh different, it might be made of different materials … It’s going to take us really being super-diligent about how we’re deciding what our planes look like in terms of weight and efficiency.”