Amex GBT CEO Says Greener Air Travel Starts With Building More Sustainable Fuel Plants — Now
Photo Credit: The European Commission is planning rules that require airlines to fill planes with a certain amount of sustainable aviation fuel in the future. Unsplash / Joshua Sukoff
Skift Take
European politicians are planning legislation that requires airlines to use more sustainable fuel by 2030, but there's very little going around. One solution is to start building more production plants now, to create enough in time. But what Amex GBT's chief Paul Abbott wants to know is who's paying to build them?
The boss of the world’s biggest corporate travel agency has clashed with a top European politician over the best way to lower carbon emissions.
As the European Commission looks at rules that would require airlines to fill planes with a certain percentage of sustainable aviation fuel in the future, he argued there weren't enough financial incentives to scale up the production of that fuel fast enough.
Paul Abbott, CEO of American Express Global Business Travel, said that 300 sustainable aviation fuel plants would need to be built, if the industry wanted to get to (as a practical example) 10 percent sustainable fuel by 2030.
The problem is that the production plants take five years to build, and cost $300 million each, he said.
