JetBlue Conversion: Airline Looks to Transform Biological Materials into Fuel

Carrier partners with Airbus on ‘second-generation biofuels’

By Dennis Schaal

JetBlue doesn’t envision adding corn-based products to its fuel menu.

Instead, the low-cost carrier entered into an alternative fuel partnership with Airbus, Honeywell Aerospace and International Aero Engines to develop alternative jet fuels from renewable biomass sources instead of fuels derived from food products.

“Importantly, the aviation fuels will come from vegetation and algae-based oils instead of diverting food crops such a corn to fuel—a practice that is raising food prices and triggering riots globally,” wrote Bill Baue, a co-host of Corporate Watchdog Radio, in an article for CSR Wire. “With airline travel projected to continue increasing (for example, more than doubling in the U.K. over the next quarter century), it seems imperative to achieve ecologically sustainable mobility solutions to avoid a crash of the airline industry in a carbon-constrained future.”

In unveiling a Jetting to Green initiative, JetBlue stated that the partnership’s “research and testing will focus on the conversion of biological materials into aviation fuel that perform identically to or as a blend component with traditional fuels while meeting the stringent performance specifications for commercial aircraft flight.”

These so-called “second-generation biofuels” would also diminish the airline’s emissions and carbon footprint, JetBlue stated.