On November 10, 2023, the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) held its 67th Assembly of Presidents in Singapore, during which the member airlines agreed to adopt 5% v/v of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) by 2030.
AAPA currently has 15 members, including Air Astana (Kazakhstan), Air India, All Nippon Airways (Japan), Bangkok Airways (Thailand), Cathay Pacific (Hong Kong), China Airlines, EVA Air (Taiwan), Garuda Indonesia, Japan Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Philippine Airlines, Royal Brunei Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Thai Airways and Vietnam Airlines.
Of all the countries where those airlines are based, Indonesia and Japan are the only countries with bio-aviation fuel or SAF mandates. Japan’s government has announced a target to blend by 2030, and Indonesia has set a target to blend 5% v/v bio-aviation fuel in 2025. In addition, several airlines have conducted SAF pilots or set their SAF targets.
Following the AAPA meeting, Singapore Airlines announced a target to blend 5% v/v SAF by 2030. Moreover, in September 2023, Singapore Airlines, the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS), and GenZero concluded a 20-month SAF pilot. Under this pilot, 1,000 tonnes of SAF were used by Singapore Airlines and Scoot flights. Garuda Indonesia recently ran a .
In terms of SAF production, currently has the highest production of SAF in Asia Pacific at 1 million tonnes/year. Indonesia can produce 0.14 million tonnes/year and China 0.20 million tonnes/year. The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and Satorp have also started producing SAF, although no further information on production capacity is available.
More information on SAF in Asia and globally is available in the .