European aviation heavyweights including Airbus call for e-SAF ramp up

Project SkyPower, which includes leaders from easyJet, Air France-KLM, SAS and Airbus, is calling for the European Union (EU) to go further in its support for e-SAF production. 

On February 18, 2025, the aviation alliance group co-chaired by the CEO of KLM Marjan Rintel published a letter setting out five policy interventions to unlock the potential of e-SAF technology. 

Project SkyPower believes that e-SAF, a sustainable aviation fuel produced from clean electricity, “could reinforce Europe’s energy security, strengthen its industrial base, and create 20,000 jobs by 2050”. 

“Project SkyPower brings together 15 high-profile CEOs from across the European aviation value chain on an urgent mission to scale e-SAF, to help strengthen EU industry, reduce emissions from aviation, and reduce dependence on fossil fuel imports to increase energy security. It calls on EU policy leaders to facilitate a more enabling policy environment to catalyze a wave of corporate action on e-SAF,” said a spokesperson for Project SkyPower. 

The five “urgency policy interventions” include:  

Make e-SAF a strategic priority in the Clean Industrial Deal and Sustainable Transport Investment Plan. 
Recycle Emissions Trading System (ETS) revenues to capitalize a market intermediary that provides revenue certainty for producers and mitigates price risk for offtakers. 
Establish a bridging mechanism in 2025 to support early adopters before the market intermediary is operational. 
Provide long-term regulatory certainty on mandates, production criteria, and penalties to de-risk investment. 
Mitigate project-on-project risk with a government-backed backstop mechanism. By implementing these measures, the EU can catalyze investment, scale e-SAF production, and ensure the success of ReFuelEU Aviation. 
Project SkyPower says that while around two million tons of e-SAF production capacity has been announced in Europe, no Final Investment Decisions (FIDs) have been reached.  

And less than 300 thousand tons of capacity is on track to be operational by 2030 – only half of what is required to meet the sub-mandate under ReFuelEU. 

With 30 large-scale e-SAF projects announced in the EU, project developers, technology licensors and EPC contractors are actively exploring collaborations to build these plants. 

The group highlights that e-SAF could realize 90% less greenhouse gas emissions over its lifecycle compared to fossil jet fuel and could abate 400 million tons of CO2 globally by 2050. 

“e-SAF is important in the transition away from fossil fuels in aviation. Through Project SkyPower, representatives all over the industry have thoroughly modelled the conditions required to overcome the barriers to scale this innovative fuel. As aviation industry leaders, we collectively agree that an enabling policy and funding framework is urgently required to kick-start production at scale,” said Rintel 

She added: “We call on EU policymakers to adopt these recommendations to support the aviation sector to reach its climate ambitions.” 

The 15 CEOs behind Project SkyPower include Anko van der Werff (President and CEO of SAS), Christian Scherer (CEO of Commercial Aircraft at Airbus) and Kenton Jarvis (incoming CEO at easyJet). 

You can read the full letter on the Project SkyPower website.  

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