Air France-KLM has completed its first long-haul flight from Paris, France to Montreal, Canada operating a biofuel-powered Airbus A350 wide-body jet.
The historical Air France-KLM flight, numbered AF342, took off from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG), France at 3:40 p.m. (UTC) on May 18, 2021, and reached its destination at Montréal–Trudeau International Airport (YUL), Canada after more than 6.5 hours of flight, the Flightradar24.com data showed.
According to the airline‘s statement, before the transatlantic operation, the Airbus A350 aircraft F-HTYI was fueled with a 16% mix of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), which was processed from used cooking oil by the French energy company Total. With this move, Air France-KLM demonstrated its commitment to lower fuel emissions as well as its ambition to support the development of the SAF supply chain in France.
Following the Green Deal policy of the European Union, the government of France will require the air carriers to fuel their jets for departing flights with a 1% mix of SAF from 2022. Besides, the requirement to enhance the percentage of SAF in the jet fuel tanks will be gradually increased to 2% by 2025 and should reach 5% by 2030.
The European Union believes that the new policy should help its member-states to become the world‘s first climate-neutral bloc by 2050.