The Director-General, International Air Transport Association (IATA), Willie Walsh, said Africa had the opportunity to develop significant levels of renewable energy, particularly, Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), an alternative fuel made from non-petroleum feedstocks that reduces emissions from air transportation with a 2050 target. Speaking to New Telegraph recently in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Walsh said SAF could be blended at different levels with limits between 10 per cent and 50 per cent, depending on the feedstock and how the fuel is produced.
In Ethiopia, engaging with key stakeholders from industry, civil society and government, the research formed the basis for a SAF roadmap and identified brassica carinata (Ethiopian mustard) as a promising potential feedstock to produce biofuels while also addressing both food and energy demand. In South Africa, the study found that there is a huge potential to use invasive alien plants for SAF production while creating jobs.
These plants currently cover more than 10 per cent of the land mass (around 11.3 million tons) and use up to six per cent of the country’s fresh water, increasing to 16 per cent of total fresh water use without eradication. RSB has worked with partners in-country and globally to define an approach for sustainable harvest within its widely recognized sustainability standard. SAF can be blended at different levels with limits between 10 per cent and 50 per cent, depending on the feedstock and how the fuel is produced.
He said: “You now have other opportunities to create a fuel that is in huge demand. And we have multiple feedstocks that are available. Africa has the opportunity to develop significant levels of renewable energy. “Now, yes, it’s going to require investment. And this is the issue. Where do you invest to ensure longer-term returns? But I think Africa has a huge opportunity when it comes to SAF. Africa could be an exporter of SAF to the world, given the resources that it has available.
“I know from speaking to the leaders of African carriers that they understand that for them to play their role, they are going to have to get to net zero in 2050 as well. But it is going to be challenging for everybody. “It is not just a challenge for African carriers. It is a challenge for every airline. But, you know, the general assessment and the general position of the industry is it’s something we have to achieve, and we will achieve.” Walsh also zeroed in on African airlines and insisted that their major single problem was operating in very small economies, rather than in Europe where an airline from one country could fly anywhere in the same region.
Operating in bigger economies, he reiterated, would help the carriers to spread their overhead costs across a much bigger market and ensure consumers would benefit significantly from greater services and also enable airlines to expand faster if they are operating in a bigger collective market. According to him, “I think it will happen because we have been debating the single market in Africa for years. Everybody believes in it, but everybody’s afraid to implement it because there is always the fear that this is going to impact negatively on me.
“Therefore, I’d like to do it, but I am afraid to do it. I think ultimately for Africa to achieve its full potential, it will have to embrace a single market or at least, a collection of markets that is bigger than exists today where, you know, trying to compete with small individual economies is just incredibly difficult for an airline. “I don’t think African carriers have anything to fear, based on the experience in Europe, I don’t think they have anything to fear. I think it will be hard, but it’s much more weighted to the opportunity than to the risk.”
The IATA DG noted that Africa had incredible potential to be a big player in the global airline business but lamented that it can’t make any headway with only two per cent of global aviation, explaining, “when you look at opportunities in the world, Africa has to be seen as an opportunity. With only two per cent of global aviation, it was two per cent of global aviation in 2000. It was two per cent in 2010. It was two per cent in 2024. I think the opportunity in Africa is huge, but it is going to have to change.”