Five months after launching a sustainable flight fund to rally partners and customers to invest in climate-friendly air travel, United Airlines announced this month the addition of eight corporate partners and an increase in the fund to nearly $200 million.
That’s about double the $100 million United and its inaugural partners had in February to start the fund, which invests in the development of sustainable aviation fuel.
One of the fund’s new partners is JetBlue Ventures, which also this month became one of three companies to sign multi-year strategic and investment partnerships with Avnos, the Los Angeles-based company developing hybrid direct air capture technology for carbon dioxide removal. Avnos plans to use the capital - in excess of $80 million - to deliver commercial ready units by the end of 2025.
The sustainable aviation fuel that has been United’s focus is an alternative to conventional jet fuel that, on a lifecycle basis, reduces greenhouse gas emissions associated with air travel compared with conventional jet fuel alone.
SAF, which currently must be blended with conventional jet fuel to meet regulatory requirements, is being made from used cooking oil and agricultural waste and could one day be made from other feedstocks including household trash or forest waste.
United said it has invested in the future production of over 5 billion gallons of SAF, the most of any airline in the world based on publicly announced purchases and agreements.
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Joining inaugural fund partners Air Canada, Boeing, GE Aerospace, JPMorgan Chase, and Honeywell are new partners American Express Global Business Travel, Aramco Ventures, Aviation Capital Group, Bank of America, Boston Consulting Group, Groupe ADP, Hawaiian Airlines and JetBlue Ventures.
In addition, 60,000 United customers – who have an option to give when they book flights – have contributed more than $200,000.
"While United can't decarbonize the airline industry alone, we can use our leadership and credibility in this space to rally others to join us," said United Airlines Ventures President Michael Leskinen. "Our new and inaugural participants demonstrate the impressive commitment within aviation and beyond to reduce our carbon footprint and combat the threat of climate change.”
Avnos takes a different approach to the same threat. But instead of consuming water to remove carbon like many other carbon dioxide removal solutions, Avnos’ proprietary technology captures both, using the water to eliminate the need for heat and reducing the system’s energy consumption by more than half of what other systems need.
“Avnos is laser focused on delivering the most cost-effective, flexible, and scalable commercial direct air capture technology in the world,” CEO Will Kain said. “[With this investment,] we will be able to remove more atmospheric carbon faster and at lower costs than we would have been able to on our own.”
Jim Lockheed, investment principal at JetBlue Ventures, said the company was thrilled to support Avnos “and the development of their technology that not only captures CO2 at impressively low cost but also generates meaningful amounts of water in the process and could play an important role in e-fuels production.”