Operational reality check: sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is no longer a niche experiment. By late 2023 regulators and policymakers are pushing hard to force SAF into the fuel system, most visibly in the EU’s ReFuelEU package that creates firm blend obligations for suppliers from 2025 onward. That is good policy intent. It also means airlines and airports should be preparing for a squeeze on supply, higher prices, and logistics headaches that will directly affect operations.

From the flight deck perspective the headline risks are simple and immediate. First, SAF supply in 2023 remains tiny compared with jet kerosene demand. Most commercial SAF available today is produced by hydroprocessing fats and oils (HEFA) from waste oils, tallow and similar lipids. Those feedstocks are finite and already contested by other biofuel markets and industries. When demand signals hard mandates and offtake commitments, the limited pool of waste lipids will be fought over globally. Expect price volatility and periodic scarcity at specific airports.

Second, mandates that do not come with commensurate, near-term increases in feedstock diversity and conversion capacity will squeeze the market. Regulation creates physical demand at airports. Without new domestic or nearby production, suppliers will import SAF or blended products to meet obligations. That raises logistics complexity and the potential for supply bottlenecks at hub airports where a single supplier or a narrow set of producers serve many carriers.

Third, the next-generation SAF pathways that can scale beyond HEFA—gasification plus Fischer-Tropsch, alcohol-to-jet, and PtL (power-to-liquids or e-fuels)—are at the demonstration or early commercial stage. They require large, dedicated inputs: low-carbon hydrogen, captured CO2, and massive renewable electricity for PtL. Those upstream supply chains are not yet mature. Early plants are capital intensive and will need long-term offtake and policy certainty to reach financial close and ramp production.

What this combination means for commercial viability

1) Price premium will persist in the near term. Airlines should budget for a measurable SAF premium and for periods when SAF volumes are simply not available at particular airports. Contracts, budgeting, and fuel-risk hedging need to anticipate that volatility.

2) Tankering behaviour and airport-level effects. If SAF is scarce at one airport carriers will be tempted to tank fuel from cheaper supply points, or the market will produce perverse incentives to carry conventional fuel to avoid buying expensive blended fuel. Mandates that require suppliers to offer SAF at point-of-sale reduce some tankering incentives but they do not eliminate supply concentration risks. Airports must think about storage, blending capability, and fuel supplier diversity now.

3) Offtake and offtake risk are central. Producers will need long-term revenue visibility. Airlines who want reliable access to SAF should be lining up credible, multi-year offtake agreements and coordinating with suppliers rather than relying on spot-market buys. But signing offtake without observing producer execution risk is also dangerous. Expect a wave of conditional offtake deals, equity stakes, and downstream contracting to reduce project risk.

4) Feedstock logistics are the choke points. Collecting and certifying used cooking oil, tallow, municipal residues and other allowed feedstocks is a low-margin, high-logistics business. Countries and regions that do not already have robust collection and certification networks will find feedstock availability the binding constraint for HEFA plants. And when policy shifts toward stricter sustainability criteria, traceability and certification work will add friction and cost.

5) PtL will not be a plug-and-play fix in the 2020s. Power-to-liquid promises a route to large volumes without biofeedstock competition. But PtL needs huge renewable energy build-out, electrolyzers, CO2 sourcing and integrated project development. Expect multi-year lead times between FID and commercial production, and early PtL fuels will be expensive compared with both fossil jet and HEFA-derived SAF.

What the supply chain evidence shows (practical takeaways)

  • Policy is moving faster than production. The EU’s ReFuelEU legislative push and similar national targets create guaranteed demand at airports. That demand will concentrate on established, certificated pathways first, especially HEFA, which increases competition for a limited feedstock pool. (See ReFuelEU adoption by EU institutions in October 2023.)

  • Feedstock trade is already tightening. Industry analysis in 2023 documented growing international trade in low-carbon feedstocks such as used cooking oil and animal fats and warned that the biofuels industry now competes heavily for materials that are finite by nature. Those trade flows increase exposure to export restrictions, fraud risks, and price spikes. Sourcing reliability will be a major procurement challenge through the rest of this decade.

  • Major renewable-fuels players are expanding but capacity growth is concentrated in a few firms and locations. Even with announced expansions, the industry transitions from small volumes to meaningful commercial supply will take time and capital. Producers need long-term offtake certainty and supportive policy to justify project investment and to secure feedstock contracts.

Short operational recommendations for airlines and airports (pilot-forward, pragmatic)

1) Treat SAF procurement like fuel infrastructure risk. Establish a dedicated procurement function for SAF that coordinates offtake, tracks producer execution risk, and integrates SAF availability into network-level fuel planning.

2) Negotiate staged offtake contracts. Long-term commitments that include delivery milestones, performance guarantees and flexibility on blending locations reduce producer and buyer risk. Use portfolio approaches across producers and pathways rather than single-supplier exposure.

3) Coordinate with airports on storage and blending. Airports should map current supplier footprints, add contingency storage or cross-supplier transfer options where feasible and plan for staged infrastructure improvements to receive, blend and document SAF deliveries.

4) Push for feedstock transparency and pooled logistics. Airlines and airports can reduce market friction by supporting pooled collection logistics for feedstocks in regions where that makes sense. Shared collection networks and standardized certification lower per-unit costs and fraud risk.

5) Prepare crew and dispatch processes for price and availability shocks. Flight planning and fuel uplift practices should be updated to reflect the probability of localized SAF shortages or premiums. Dispatchers and operations teams must have clear guidance on when tankering or deviation for refueling is or is not acceptable under fuel policy and safety margins.

Bottom line

SAF is essential to aviation’s decarbonisation pathway. But as of October 2023 the move from pilots and demonstrations to a commercial, dependable fuel system faces clear supply chain bottlenecks. Regulators have signalled demand through mandates. The private sector and governments must now collaborate to relieve the choke points: diversify feedstocks, scale conversion technologies beyond HEFA, build renewable-energy and hydrogen supply chains for PtL, and create transparent markets that reduce price volatility.

If you operate aircraft, work in fuel procurement or run airport fuel operations, treat SAF as an operational issue today not just an environmental one. Put procurement, contingency planning and infrastructure upgrades on the immediate to-do list. The transition is coming, but without coordinated action there will be real operational pain before the environmental gain.