STOCKHOLM, 14 March 2018: Swedish airline BRA is launching the world’s first passenger airline biofuel tickets, that gives passengers the choice to buy a ticket for a flight that will be fuelled by biofuel.
Starting 8 April 2, anyone who flies with BRA will be able to book biofuel flights for a surcharge of SEK 300 per flight.
If enough passengers are prepared to pay the surcharge then the airline tanks up on the “greener” fuel.
The biofuel surcharge means that every passenger ensures that his own flight is made as green as possible with biofuel, just like buying green electricity for his household.
“It’s important for us as an airline to make it easy to choose climate smart. Choosing biofuel is a great opportunity we as an airline now offer all our customers. In the past, we have offered this for companies. This is an important and concrete step towards our goal of becoming fossil-free by 2030, said the airline’s CEO, Christian Clemens.
It works in the same way as buying green electricity for the household. That is, you buy and make sure that biofuel is tanked by BRA. The refueling is made afterwards when BRA sees the amount of biofuels bought by travellers.
In this way, BRA replaces conventional fuel for biofuels continuously and increases biofuel use overall for the airplane.
BRA does not charge any additional fees for the biofuel, the supplement is only the difference between the fuel cost. Biofuel is an optional option for anyone booking a BRA flight.
BRA’s flights are on average an hour, so the surcharge is the same for all flights.
As early as 2009, BRA was the first passenger airline in the world to be environmentally certified according to ISO 14001. And as recently as last week, BRA was granted first and only airline membership in the government initiative Fossilfri Sweden.
Since 2017, BRA has offered its corporate customers and members of the loyalty programme BRA Friends to buy biofuel.
In 2017, the company also made a 45% biofuel mix in one of its new turboprop aircraft. The airline claims the measured emission reduction was 67%.
BRA’s biofuel is supplied by Air BP and comes from old frying oil and other residues.
Biofuel is made of 100% fossil-free biora raw material.
BRA flies the world’s most climate-efficient regional aircraft type: ATR 500/600 turboprop aircraft.
BRA has had one of its goals to become fossil-free until 2030, several years ahead of national targets.
The flight will not be totally fossil-fuel free, but for each litre of of fossil fuel replaced with biofuel, fossil emissions are reduced by 70% from a life-cycle perspective.
Biofuel remains considerably more expensive, four to five times higher than regular aviation fuel. At present commercial airlines are not allowed to fly with more than 50% biofuel.
However, in the future, aircraft will probably be fuel entirely with clean biofuels and also have one or more engines with electric power.
