Targeting sustainable aviation fuel at a handful of major airports could deliver outsized climate and health benefits, new CATF analysis finds
A new report from Clean Air Task Force (CATF) finds that directing sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) to a small number of high-impact airports, rather than spreading it across the aviation network, could significantly increase the fuel’s climate and public health benefits while global supply continues to build. The report, Maximizing the Climate Co-Benefits of Sustainable Aviation Fuel via Targeted Allocation, analyzed 2024 flight activity at major U.S. and European airports to identify where targeted SAF use would have the biggest impact.
“Every ton of SAF reduces carbon emissions no matter where it’s used, but that’s not true of the fuel’s other climate and health benefits,” said Thomas Walker, Associate Director for Transportation Technology at Clean Air Task Force and a co-author of the report. “Contrail formation and local air pollution are both highly dependent on where and when a plane takes off. That means a relatively small amount of SAF, directed to the right airports, could do far more good than the same amount spread evenly across the system – especially while SAF supplies are highly limited.”
Working with aviation climate data company Estuaire, CATF analyzed 16.6 million flights at major U.S. and European airports in 2024, examining contrail formation as well as particulate matter and nitrogen oxide emissions during landing and takeoff. The analysis found that just 2% of flights generate 80% of contrail-related warming, meaning a targeted approach can capture most of the climate benefit without requiring a large share of the global SAF supply, which made up just 0.7% of the jet fuel market in 2025.
Based on a combination of contrail impacts and air quality benefits, the report identifies John F. Kennedy International Airport, Los Angeles International Airport, and O’Hare International Airport as priority U.S. locations for targeted SAF allocation. In Europe, London Heathrow, Istanbul Airport, and Paris Charles de Gaulle were identified for the same reasons. JFK and Heathrow stand out as both operating large numbers of long-haul, internationally distributed flights that regularly cross ice-supersaturated regions over the North Atlantic, where contrails form most readily.
The report models the effect of blending SAF at these six airports at rates from 10% to 100%. At a 50% blend, contrail-related warming fell by 30% to 34% at the U.S. airports studied and 33% to 40% at the European airports, while particulate emissions during landing and takeoff dropped 26% to 28% at all six locations.
“The health benefits alone make a strong case for targeting,” said Lucía M. Maroto, Transportation Decarbonization Manager for Europe at CATF and a co-author of the report. “Our analysis shows that targeted SAF use could reduce particulate pollution around major airports, helping to limit exposure in the communities most directly affected by aviation’s air-quality impacts. Given that baseline air-pollution mortality in Europe runs two to three times higher than in the U.S., the public health case for targeting major hubs such as Paris Charles de Gaulle and Heathrow is particularly strong.”
The report also examined more targeted strategies, finding that concentrating SAF use during winter months or evening and overnight departures, when contrail formation is most common, delivers more climate benefit per ton of fuel than blending it evenly across all flights at an airport. London Heathrow is already pursuing a version of this approach: the airport uplifted 17% of the world’s available SAF supply in 2024 and is working to double that volume in 2026.
The report’s authors caution that targeting SAF to specific airports or flights introduces real logistical complexity, since much of the existing fuel supply infrastructure, particularly airports served by shared pipeline networks, was not designed to support differentiated blending. To address this, the report recommends that policymakers explicitly recognize contrail and air quality effects in aviation policy, fund further research into targeting strategies, and support pilot programs at high-impact airports to test targeted SAF deployment under real operating conditions.
Read the full report here.
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About Clean Air Task Force
Clean Air Task Force (CATF) is a global nonprofit organization working to safeguard against the worst impacts of climate change by catalyzing the rapid development and deployment of low-carbon energy and other climate-protecting technologies. With 30 years of internationally recognized expertise on climate policy and a fierce commitment to exploring all potential solutions, CATF is a pragmatic, non-ideological advocacy group with the bold ideas needed to address climate change. CATF has offices in Boston, Washington D.C., and Brussels, with staff working virtually around the world. Visit catf.us and follow @cleanaircatf.
