Climbing Fast Soars Past No Plane, No Gain

The campaign is considerably broader in scope than NBAA’s and the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA)’s No Plane, No Gain advocacy program, which launched in February 2009 in the wake of the big three automakers being skewered by Congress and the media for using business jets to fly to Washington, D.C., to seek federal bailouts to avoid bankruptcy. Climbing Fast now replaces No Plane, No Gain.

Climbing Fast seeks to educate the public and promote a positive image of business aviation as an ecological means of flying people where they need to go, when they need to go for the benefit of all sectors in the community. It was announced and explained by Bolen, NBAA chairman Monte Koch, GAMA president and CEO Peter Bunce, and GAMA chairman Eric Hinson at a Tuesday morning press breakfast at NBAA-BACE in Las Vegas. Bolen said that coalition includes the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, the Experimental Aircraft Association, the Helicopter Association International, the International Aircraft Dealers Association, the International Business Aviation Council, the National Aircraft Finance Association, the National Air Transportation Association, and Women in Corporate Aviation, among advocacy organizations. 

Bunce said business aviation is under attack by European legislators who seek to prohibit any new investment in corporate aircraft. He pointed to the role that GA agricultural aircraft, converted into water bombers, have played in helping to suppress the 2023 Greek wildfires. Bolen added that helicopter operators volunteered to transport more than 35 tons of relief supplies to survivors in Lahaina in the aftermath of its devastating 2023 wildfires. GA aircraft thus provide benefits to entire communities, not just those who operate them. 

Hinson highlighted business aviation as an “innovation incubator,” citing its being an early adopter of ADS-B In, satellite navigation, and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF/bio-jet). Bolen said that business aviation is well on its way to attaining net-zero carbon emissions by mid-century, noting that business aircraft emissions have been slashed by 40 percent in the past four decades and that today’s new jets are 30 percent more fuel efficient than the aircraft they replace.

Achieving net zero is critically dependent upon boosting production of bio-jet SAF, the green replacement fuel for fossil jet-A. Currently SAF production stands at about 0.1 percent of all jet fuel consumed, close to 100 million gallons per year of the 100 billion gallons consumed by all aviation users. Hinson suggests that a federal government mandate to blend in a small percent of SAF—for example, 5 percent—into fossil jet fuel by 2030, similar to the federal government mandate to blend in ethanol to auto gas, would provide a strong incentive for fuel producers to increase SAF production. He further suggests that future “blend creep” mandates, increasing the required proportion of SAF in jet-A by a series of deadlines, would enable the aviation industry to achieve 100 percent use of SAF by 2050. As for available bio-jet feedstocks, he cited the U.S. Department of Energy’s Billion Ton Update, a report that provides clear and convincing evidence that the U.S. has well in excess of a billion tons of dry mass biofuel feedstock, part of which could be refined into bio-jet SAF. 

Bunce said U.S. farmers are potential strong allies of SAF advocates, citing U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack’s September 12 statement urging conversion of part of ethanol production for SAF. Vilsack says 16,700 farms, mostly small family owned, and 6.9 millions acres of arable land have been lost in less than seven years. That land could be used to produce millions of tons of biofuel feedstocks. Bunce says that ethanol-to-jet promises a 40 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, perhaps greater as conversion processes are improved. 

Bolen added that now there are eight, not just six, primary SAF feedstock “pathways,” including ethanol-to-SAF, municipal solid waste, cellulosic waste, camelina, jatropha, halophytes, salt water algae, power-to-liquid conversion, and sun-to-liquid. 

Michael Amalfitano, president and CEO of Embraer Executive Jets, commented that 54 percent of respondents in a recent survey of business aircraft operators say they intend to use SAF, if it’s available. This is up from 31 percent of respondents in Embraer’s 2019 operator survey. 

All panelists agreed that federal government incentives and international agreements will be needed to scale up production to meet increasing demand and reduce the eye-watering price disparity between SAF jet-A and fossil jet-A. Panelists also noted that commercial airlines will be the largest consumers of SAF by wide margins in the future, making it even harder to supply SAF to small GA airports.