Virgin Flies Biofueled Jet From London
Business Futurist | Foresight Strategist
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Morris Misel has been doing this for 30 years across 160 industries, with boards, executive teams, and leadership groups in Australia and internationally. More than 2,800 engagements. Over a million people a year through conferences, boardrooms, and media.
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Virgin’s biofueled flight from London was an early proof-of-concept moment for sustainable aviation fuel — demonstrating that commercial aircraft could operate on alternative fuels without engine modification. But demonstration flights are not solutions. They signal that the technology pathway exists while making visible how far the aviation industry still has to travel before sustainable fuel becomes mainstream at commercial scale.
Airlines need to treat sustainable aviation fuel as a supply chain and procurement challenge, not just a PR opportunity. Locking in long-term supply agreements, investing in production partnerships, and building SAF into pricing models early gives carriers more control as regulations tighten. Aviation-dependent businesses — from tourism to freight — need to factor higher fuel costs into their long-term planning assumptions.
The main barriers are feedstock availability, production capacity, and cost. Sustainable aviation fuel currently costs two to four times more than conventional jet fuel, and the raw materials — waste cooking oils, agricultural residues — are finite and contested by competing industries. Scaling SAF to meet even a fraction of global aviation demand would require a transformation of feedstock supply chains that is not yet in sight.
Aviation’s challenge is structurally harder than automotive electrification. Batteries that work for cars cannot yet power long-haul flights, making sustainable aviation fuel and eventual hydrogen a necessity rather than a choice. Aviation will likely be one of the last major sectors to fully decarbonise, placing it under sustained regulatory and reputational pressure well into the 2040s.
The emerging signal to watch is mandatory SAF blending requirements. The European Union has already introduced blending mandates — a rising percentage of jet fuel must come from sustainable sources year on year. These mandates will drive costs across international routes and reshape competitive dynamics between airlines operating under different regulatory regimes. Travel budgets and logistics costs will both be affected before most organisations have planned for it.
