World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) chief executive Julia Simpson has reiterated calls for far greater production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and criticised governments for their performance so far.
Delegates at the ‘A World for Travel’ conference in Seville were urged to support the aviation sector in its push for more SAF, with Simpson noting that current supplies are “about 0.1% of what we need”.
She said: “At the minute, governments have the technology and the regulation to produce much more SAF but they’re not taking that step and it’s not something airlines can do on their own, so we need to encourage governments to incentivise the production of SAF.”
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The WTTC published a report on SAF in May last year and the body has been vocal in appealing to governments to take urgent action.
In Seville on Wednesday (October 23) , Simpson said current production efforts were “not producing anywhere near enough”. She added that the aviation industry required a “trillion litres” of the fuel.
“When people point their finger at aviation, I always say aviation doesn’t make its own fuel – it has to buy fuel,” she said.
She added: “We need to encourage governments to incentivise the production of SAF. Currently we’re still only producing about 0.1% of what we need.
“Travel and tourism doesn’t always talk about aviation but we’re absolutely inextricably linked and we all need to stand up and support aviation’s need for those kinds of sustainable fuels.”
She added she felt “very passionately” about the need for SAF as a way of helping to reduce emission levels, with further electrification of ground transportation cited as among the other valuable steps.
Simpson also pointed out that the WTTC had created the Hotel Sustainability Basics scheme to support accommodation providers of all sizes, but particularly those falling into the small-and-medium-sized category.