American Airlines and Google have signed the largest publicly announced sustainable aviation fuel certificate deal between an airline and a single corporate customer. The agreement covers 35 million gallons of SAF over three years and is projected to cut nearly 300,000 metric tons of CO2e.
American will buy and take delivery of the physical fuel for Chicago O’Hare International Airport through existing infrastructure, while Google receives the environmental attributes through the SAFc Registry in a book-and-claim structure. The SAF component will come from waste feedstocks such as used cooking oil, and the arrangement also supports a long-term supply line with Valero Marketing and Supply Company.
The deal gives American a demand signal for SAF deployment and gives Google a route to account for employee business travel emissions without tying the fuel to specific flights. More large corporate offtake deals will be needed if the sector wants to scale supply beyond pilot volumes.