SAF Provides Opportunity For India, Says Airbus CEO

Toulouse (France): Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), which can help reduce carbon emissions, provides an opportunity for India, where sustainability is high on the agenda, Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury has said. One of the world’s fastest growing civil aviation markets, Airbus sees "more and more potential in India", with one of the senior officials saying the country is nothing but "growth" for the company.

Apart from having hundreds of aircraft orders placed by Indian carriers, the plane maker has a joint venture Final Assembly Line (FAL) for C295 aircraft and a FAL for helicopter H125 will be set up this year in India. Besides, Airbus sources more than 1 billion euros worth of components and services for global exports from the country. "SAF is an opportunity for India... sustainability is something that is very high on the agenda in India.... India has a bigger share of aviation... of the global aviation. Therefore India has a bigger role and a bigger responsibility to play in the global equation," Guillaume Faury told media. He was speaking to media on the sidelines of the Airbus Summit 2025 in Toulouse.

Aviation accounts for around 2-3 per cent of the global carbon emissions and SAF can help in reducing these emissions. By replacing 10 per cent of global jet fuel consumption with SAF, the aviation industry could reduce the emissions by around 50 million tonnes of carbon emissions per year, as per Airbus. India has a great potential to become a SAF producer, Head of SAF and CDR Developments Sustainability Organisation at Julien Manhes said. For SAF production, the country can look at utilising its ethanol supplies and availability of lipids feedstocks like non-edible industrial oils. Talking about the development of the global aviation sector, Faury said the first revolution was about getting in the air more than a century ago and the second was to have a safe mode of transport. "The third was making travel affordable for people. Going to sustainability, which is the fourth revolution, we do not want to lose the benefits of what we have achieved so far," he emphasised. Meanwhile, Chief Executive Officer of the commercial aircraft business at Airbus Christian Scherer told media on Monday that the company is growing its supply chain in India.

"We are increasing our supply, whether it is engineering services where India is really good, it is intellectual supply compared to metallurgical supplies.