Oil companies should invest in sustainable aviation fuel: Al Baker

(MENAFN - The Peninsula) While many major airlines have committed to be carbon neutral by 2050, engine and aircraft manufacturers, especially the oil companies, also play a critical role in making the aviation industry sustainable, said Qatar Airways Chief Executive H E Akbar Al Baker, while speaking at the panel discussion ''Back in the Air” during the Qatar Economic Forum Powered by Bloomberg, yesterday.  During the event, Al Baker reiterated the lack of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) at affordable prices in the market, and stressed that oil companies, which have invested heavily in the oil fields, are not doing enough in investing in SAF.  He said: ''We are under a lot of pressure from our government to reduce emissions and to make our airplanes very fuel efficient. But at the end of the day, it all depends on the OEMs, on the engine manufacturers and aircraft manufacturers, but most importantly on the oil companies.  ''Oil companies have invested so much in hydrocarbons and in the developments of oil fields. But they don’t want to invest enough money to produce sustainable aviation fuel at affordable prices. We at Qatar Airways are investing in state-of-the-art airplanes with fuel efficiency, but we cannot afford or are able to buy volumes of SAF which we want in order to reduce our emissions and save the planet. Again, it boils down to the producers, oil companies need to invest and produce sustainable aviation fuel at affordable prices so we can deliver on the promises we’re making to be carbon neutral by 2050. And 2050 will come very fast, we need to invest today,” Al Baker added.  According to David Calhoun, President and CEO of The Boeing Company, every next aeroplane which will come out from Boeing post-2030 will be SAF-ready. ''If the aeroplane comes along in the next five or 10 years, its claim to sustainability will have to be built around sustainable aviation fuel. It will not be built around electric or hydrogen or anything of that sort,” said David Calhoun, President and CEO of The Boeing Company.  Globally, an estimated $125bn of revenue has been wiped out in the airline industry in 2020, as many fleets were grounded and several airlines have closed shop due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Domestic travel has started picking up strongly particularly in the US, European, and Chinese markets, but international travel remains fairly limited.  Al Baker said the shifting travel and quarantine policies by governments are harming not only their economies, but the global aviation industry as well.  ''I am extremely frustrated because what is happening everyday is that governments are changing protocols about who is eligible for entry, the quarantine policies, and who they will restrict from entering into their countries, as well as different requirements for vaccinations and the COVID-19 tests.  ''This is really confusing the airlines and the passengers. And I hope that the governments realise that they are damaging, not only their economies, but they are also damaging the aviation industry as a whole.  All of us, the airlines and the CEOs, are in the same boat. The problem is until the biggest markets in the world open up, like Brazil, China, and India, we will keep on having a depression on travel,” said Al Baker.  However, he was also optimistic that business travel will bounce back stronger, and stressed that businesspeople still prefer face-to-face meetings.  ''I’m confident that business class occupancy will rise very rapidly once the pandemic is under control. At Qatar Airways we have done away with ‘first class’. And we have a product in business class which is equivalent to most of the ‘first class’ of all the airlines in the world,” he said.  He went on to stress the continued demand for freight travel, and added that Qatar Airways has been the world’s largest freight carrier, excluding the FedEx and UPS, for the last two years.  ''We are hungry for more freighters. And we are very keen to be a launch customer, be it for the 350F or the 777X freigthers. At QA, we will concentrate on air freight as an important part of our total strategy. But of course, first, we are an airline to carry passengers,” added Al Baker.MENAFN23062021000063011010ID1102331268