2024 ATW Eco-Airline Of The Year: International Airlines Group

The imperative to ensure the world’s air transport system remains a leader in sustainability has never been clearer. This industry has united behind a global commitment to be carbon net-zero by 2050. It’s a tough challenge that requires the participation, innovation and investment of major players like International Airlines Group (IAG).

IAG, parent of British Airways, Iberia, Vueling, Aer Lingus and LEVEL, has used its scale, influence and track record over the last 30 years to transform its business and to drive industry-wide changes for a truly sustainable aviation industry.

IAG and its airlines were the first to publish their carbon footprint, offer a carbon offset program for their customers, set a target for net-zero greenhouse emissions, and set a voluntary target of 10% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) use. These are best practices since adopted by other airlines. In addition to its total investment of 1 billion dollars in sustainable aviation fuel, IAG bought 12% of the world’s SAF supply in 2023 and achieved a significant 3.6% reduction in carbon intensity.

The Group has a set of guiding principles that drive its sustainability initiatives:

• Establish clear and ambitious targets relating to IAG’s most material issues.
• Embed a low-carbon transition pathway in its business strategy.
• Align management incentives to deliver a low-carbon transition plan.
• Take leadership in carbon disclosures.
• Accelerate progress in low-carbon technologies including aircraft technology, SAF, carbon offsets and carbon removals.
• Accelerate innovation in low-carbon technology.
• Lead the industry in innovating and deploying SAF, including power-to-liquids.
• Step up social commitments, including on diversity, employee engagement, and sustainability, as a core value.
• Take industry leadership in stakeholder engagement and advocacy.

IAG and its airlines have stood by this comprehensive mandate for decades, long before aviation sustainability became a widely understood concept and before the global air transport industry committed to a 2050 carbon net-zero goal.

Even more impressive, IAG airlines have introduced multiple fuel- and emissions-saving operations that include:

• Aer Lingus implemented more efficient alternate airport routings, enabling one-third of flights to carry 160 kg less fuel, saving 1,100 tons of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) per year.
• Aer Lingus and British Airways modified their procedures to retract landing lights earlier after takeoff, saving 570 and 8,000 tons of GHG emissions per year, respectively.
• British Airways deployed a new fuel efficiency dashboard, enabling pilots to better align fuel use with fuel needs, and also implemented the first phase of its potable water reduction plan, avoiding nearly 2,000 tons of GHG emissions per year.
• British Airways retrofitted 10 Airbus A320-series aircraft with Sharklet winglets, saving 6,000 tons of GHG emissions per year.
• Iberia implemented a new onboard real-time weather forecasting tool and new improved engine wash methods.
• Vueling partnered with Eurocontrol and ENAIRE, the Spanish ANSP, to define a new key performance measure that measures the airspace efficiency according to GHG emissions instead of distance flown.
• Vueling deployed NAV Flight Services’ NAVlink Wind Updates on its fleet. Preceding trials have demonstrated that the use of optimized in-flight wind data updates allows the flight management computer to plan more efficient descent trajectories.

In 2021, IAG was the first airline globally to set a voluntary target of 10% SAF use, dependent on appropriate government support, which has since been adopted by over 30 airlines globally. This target will require IAG to use 1 million tons (~330 million gallons) of SAF in 2030.

As of year-end 2023, IAG had secured 25% of the SAF to achieve this target, committing $865 million in SAF purchases and investments as of year-end 2022, based on a forecasted jet fuel price in 2030 and contracted margins for SAF production. This is the largest disclosed financial commitment to SAF by any airline globally.

In January, LanzaJet completed its Freedom Pines Fuels facility in Soperton, Georgia, in the US, becoming the world’s first commercial-scale alcohol-to-jet facility. As a part owner of LanzaJet, British Airways plans to buy 25% of the facility’s annual production of 27,000 tons (9 million gallons).

And earlier this year, IAG signed its largest ever SAF purchase agreement with Twelve, which plans to produce advanced power-to-liquid SAF made from CO2, water and renewable energy. This project plans to deliver 790,000 tons (260 million gallons) of SAF to IAG, with a lifecycle emissions reduction of at least 80%, and is the largest annual commitment by any airline globally to power-to-liquid SAF.

The people of IAG, led by group sustainability head Jonathon Counsell, are making a difference in aviation sustainability every day. And they are showing ways the wider industry and the individual can participate in that critical effort.