Sustainable aviation fuel take-up in UK unlikely to hit 2025 target, data suggests | Airline industry
The adoption of sustainable aviation fuels is set to fall short of the UK government’s first annual mandate, official figures suggest.
Production data published by the Department for Transport (DfT) covering most of 2025 shows that sustainable fuels (SAF) made up just 1.6% of fuel supplied for UK flights, 20% less fuel by volume than the 2% needed to meet the requirement.
The government introduced the mandate in January, which requires suppliers to meet SAF targets – which the industry considers important in reducing its carbon emissions – in the overall UK aviation fuel mix.
The mandatory target increases sharply, from 2% in 2025 to 10% in 2030 and then to 22% in 2040, including the use of second generation fuels deemed more sustainable in the long term.
Until now, the supply of SAF has been exclusively produced from recycled cooking oil from Asia, mainly China, according to DfT figures.
The data shows that just over 160 million liters (35 million gallons) of SAF were used, out of the 10 billion liters of jet fuel burned in the UK up to the start of October.
The DfT said the time taken for verification meant the figures were provisional and final figures for the year were not expected to be published until November 2026. A department spokesperson said: “These figures do not present the full picture. SAF volumes are continually increasing and not all suppliers have accounted for the fuel they have supplied.”
Planes burning SAF still emit equal amounts of CO2 in flight, but the net carbon footprint is calculated to be much lower due to the way SAF is produced, compared to normal jet fuel. Although many scientists and environmental groups remain deeply skeptical of its feasibility, the production and adoption of SAF is considered the only way for commercial aviation, and particularly long-haul, to reduce its emissions.
While the government has backed aviation as an engine of economic growth and allowed airports including Gatwick and Luton to expand rapidly, ministers have promised to consult the Climate Change Committee on plans to build a third runway at Heathrow.
Aviation Minister Keir Mather told an industry conference in London earlier this month that Heathrow’s expansion would still need to meet Labour’s four criteria, including reducing its climate impact, but that decarbonisation would be “a license for growth”.
He said SAF represented the biggest opportunity and that the Government’s SAF Bill, which is currently going through the House of Lords, “will provide the revenue certainty mechanism you have called for – a guaranteed price for SAF that reduces risk for investors and builds confidence for producers”.
Heathrow Airport has encouraged the adoption of SAF through an incentive program that reduces landing fees for airlines using cleaner fuel. It hopes to achieve its own target of 3% SAF use by 2025.
However, airlines have fewer supplies available outside of major hub airports and are wondering whether future mandates can be met – particularly when the more expensive second-generation and liquid power SAFs, which have not yet been produced at scale, are mandated.
The UK has progressed further than most other countries in global aviation. International airlines body Iata recently warned that global production growth has stalled, with SAF supplying just 0.6% of total jet fuel consumption in 2025 and forecast to increase to 0.8% in 2026.
Iata chief executive Willie Walsh criticized the mandates, adding: “If the goal is to increase SAF production to further decarbonize aviation, then they need to learn from failures and work with the airline industry to design incentives that will work. »
Duncan McCourt, chief executive of aviation industry body Sustainable Aviation, said: “These provisional figures show that the UK is using significant quantities of SAF and we remain confident that the mandate will be met and that UK aviation will use increasing amounts of SAF in the years to come.
