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Tailoring SAF Deployment: Maximise Impact, Minimise Complexity
- Feb 10
- 4 min read
Every airline today faces the same reality: sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is more expensive than conventional jet fuel. It’s in limited supply and yet the pressure to adopt it keeps climbing. To simplify procurement and meet compliance, most carriers contract a uniform SAF blend upstream.
However, uniformity isn’t always efficient due to varying regional contexts, whereby different markets face distinct regulatory environments, infrastructure readiness, and operational constraints.
A rigid, one-size-fits-all approach may overlook these nuances and lead to inefficiencies.
The mainstream procurement strategy
Today, SAF is typically introduced into the fuel system as a standardised blend of up to 50% at the refinery or terminal level before being distributed [1]. Procurement decisions are shaped by:
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This makes uniform blend the easiest path forward. However, uniformity can limit the strategic impact of SAF deployment. With today’s infrastructure setup, airlines need the ability to deploy SAF where it makes the most operational and economic sense.
What flexibility actually looks like
Near-airport blending infrastructure enables modular, localised blending capacity that can be deployed anywhere in the supply chain where it makes logistical and economic sense.
With FlyORO’s last-mile blending:
Airlines can physically uplift SAF where infrastructure is ready, not just where refineries blend it.
Airports can activate SAF operations without multi-year capex-heavy upgrades.
Suppliers can reposition blending closer to the point of use, reducing unnecessary transport, delays, and constraints.
Regions with mandates or incentives can receive blends at a faster rate, while others maintain standard supply.
This creates a network-wide flexibility layer that existing supply chains simply cannot provide.
While book-and-claim works well for voluntary Scope 3 reductions and for corporates, it bypasses physical constraints entirely. This is especially since book-and-claim SAF does not count toward regulatory mechanisms such as CORSIA, ReFuelEU mandate, etc. To meet legislative and regulatory requirements, airlines must uplift SAF physically. Hence, this is where modular, location-flexible blending becomes critical.
Airlines need physical SAF in the tank, but not every airport needs to spend on expensive, permanent infrastructure to achieve it.
Case Scenario
Consider a common scenario: Airline X operates across a global network where some airports and countries offer strong incentives for SAF, while others provide none. Country A incentivises producers through a tax credit system, driving investment in SAF production and the establishment of renewable refineries. Country B, by contrast, has set up a national SAF offtake target but has not introduced incentive programs to support production. Under the current upstream-only blending model, the airline is constrained to adopt a uniform blend everywhere, regardless of local conditions.
For Airline X, operating in both Country A and Country B presents a challenge. The airline must carefully manage its SAF procurement to (1) comply with regulatory requirements and (2) maximise available incentives. However, with production and supply concentrated in Country A, the airline faces costly supply chain arrangements to meet obligations in Country B, more so if the two countries are geographically distant.
In this scenario, Airline X is left with limited options of importing blended SAF, thus incurring higher supply chain costs instead of importing only the synthetic blending component (SBC) and blending it with the locally available Jet A/A-1 at the airport.
However, if FlyORO’s AlphaLite was deployed at Country B’s Innovative International Airport (IIA), provided the location is feasible and compliant with JIG 1530/1533 standards, SBC producers can export directly at the point of use. By leveraging the existing Jet A/A-1 supply at IIA, Airline X gains direct access to SAF directly at the airport, precisely where it is needed.
This approach reduces costly cross-border supply chain complexities, ensures compliance with local SAF targets, and enables airlines to benefit from a more flexible, demand-driven procurement model.
*case scenario is fictional with the purpose of providing more clarity
Why does this matter?
In the future, SAF supply will grow, but unevenly. Mandates will tighten, but differently across regions. Airlines will need to navigate different levels of infrastructure efficiencies, markets with varying incentives, routes with disproportionate emissions impact and irregular or small volumes that do not justify capex-heavy solutions.
A deploy-anywhere blending capability gives airlines and suppliers the ability to meet mandates and voluntary demand without overhauling infrastructure.
It optimises abatement with the same procurement budget, avoids bottlenecks from uniform blending and scales SAF uplift at airports, instead of waiting for the entire network to be ready. Through this, SAF is turned from a procurement problem into a network optimisation tool.
SAF is not just about what you buy, it’s where and how you can use it. Modular last-mile blending ensures airlines can deploy SAF where it creates the most regulatory, operational, and environmental impact, without being restricted by legacy infrastructure.
References
About FlyORO
FlyORO provides the world's first revolutionary, modular, on-demand blending service of SAF and jet fuel to enable aviation on its emissions reduction journey. As an enabler to the SAF supply chain, FlyORO enable flyers the flexibility to align their ESG targets per flight rather than be succumbed to fixed blend ratios and bulk commitments upfront. With a small form factor of 40ft, it is space efficient and portable and can be installed anywhere at or off airport base. This solution allows airport fuel operators to serve flyers more effectively with a simplified supply chain.
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