Air France flew an Airbus A321 passenger aircraft Thursday from Toulouse to Paris's Orly airport with a fuel mix comprising 50 per cent used cooking oil.
The 80-minute, 570-kilometre journey was the world's greenest commercial flight, Toulouse-based Airbus said in an emailed statement.
Besides using biofuel, the plane, which can carry more than 200 passengers, flew the shortest available route using a more efficient continuous descent approach, Airbus said. That helped cut in half the overall emissions of carbon dioxide.
Airlines on July 1 won approval from ASTM International, the U.S. technical standards body, to fly passenger planes using fuel made from inedible plants and organic waste mixed with petroleumderived fuel. Approval allows for blends of up to 50 per cent biofuel. Since then, airlines including Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Finnair Oyj have flown using such blends.
More efficient air traffic management could result in a decrease of 10 per cent in aircraft fuel consumption, according to the statement, as well as "significant" reductions in carbon dioxide and noise emissions.?
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