Some of Europe’s biggest airlines are playing with the future source of our energy security. The first to show its hand was Lufthansa. Last week the airline publicly criticised one of the few European policies aimed at decarbonising aviation: the targets for replacing kerosene with Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAFs).
We have seen this strategy before. Not long ago, carmakers lobbied hard for endless flexibilities and delays to climate rules. Now Lufthansa is attempting the same tactic in aviation: watering down climate policy and undermining Europe’s nascent SAF industry at precisely the moment when the sector needs certainty.
Lufthansa is not alone.
The General Assembly of the European airline lobby group Airlines for Europe (A4E) takes place tomorrow, and CEOs from major carriers are expected to call for the delay of the 1.2% 2030 target for e-SAFs, the synthetic fuels derived from green hydrogen. Their argument is simple: as projects are struggling to reach financial closure, the targets should be postponed until e-SAF becomes available on the market.
This risks killing the European e-SAF industry before it even takes off. At a time when fossil fuel prices are going up because of the Iran crisis, are airlines about to blow up the only viable alternative for aviation? The CEO of Sydney airport said it himself last week: sovereign SAF production is ever more important in a time of geopolitical instability.
T&E has modelled the impact of a delay of the e-SAF target by five years – a generous assumption given the airlines’ demands could have much more damaging consequences. Postponing the e-SAF targets while keeping overall SAF mandates unchanged could shift demand away from e-SAF towards bio-SAF. Our analysis shows that this would require an additional 14.5 million tonnes of biofuels by 2050. With the current mandate, Europe will already be relying on three times more biofuels than it can sustainably source by 2050. A delay of the targets would only exacerbate the problem further, increasing reliance on imported waste oils and fats with poor environmental track records, and highly vulnerable to fraud.
The consequences could be even worse. If the gap left by e-SAF were instead filled with fossil kerosene – another fuel that Europe largely imports – the bloc would forgo around 1.7 million tonnes of CO₂ savings each year between 2030 and 2034. By 2050, lower e-SAF volumes would result in an additional 55 Mt of fossil kerosene consumption and nearly halve the climate benefits delivered by e-SAF under the mandate.
In other words, weakening the targets would not simply slow progress, it would actively increase Europe’s dependence on imported fuels and push emissions higher.
It would also undermine Europe’s industrial ambitions and energy sovereignty. The 40 European e-SAF projects under development, largely led by start-ups, risk moving elsewhere or shutting down altogether. At the very moment Europe should be investing in domestic production and building its own clean aviation fuel industry.
Besides, the mandate is already doing what it was designed to do: drive supply.
In the UK, which introduced its own SAF mandate, the target has already been exceeded. SAF reached 2.4% of jet fuel supply in 2025, well above the mandated 2%. Early signals from Europe suggest a similar trend. There are strong indications that the EU’s 2% SAF target for 2025 will be met. Some airlines are already going further: Air France-KLM used 2.9% SAF in 2025, while International Airlines Group (IAG) reached 3.3%, both well above the 2% benchmark. Meanwhile, EASA projects around 3.5 million tonnes of SAF production capacity in Europe by 2030 from plants already under construction. The same happened in the cars sector: automakers complained about targets and excessive fines, yet EV sales always reach the quotas when the deadline hits.
But are airlines useful idiots in this situation? The SAF market is at the mercy of fuel suppliers. Although they are mandated by law to supply SAF, none of the majors have made meaningful investments in e-SAF production. Instead, Europe’s e-SAF pipeline is being driven largely by startups. Across the continent, 40 large-scale projects are currently under development. On their own, these companies could produce around three times the volume required by the European mandate by 2032.
Meanwhile, oil majors, with far deeper pockets, are standing on the sidelines. They are waiting for airlines to shoot down the targets, and not investing a dollar in the market when they clearly have the financial power to do so. Worst still, Big Oil often owns and controls access to critical jet fuel infrastructure in Europe, and has the power to block new producers from entering, creating a significant competition bottleneck. This year, these same companies will make billions in profit due to the Iran crisis, with their stock prices having already shot up and alongside it the price of jet kerosene.
The demands of Lufthansa, other airlines and Big Oil will not make flying more sustainable or cheaper. Quite the opposite: they sow uncertainty in the SAF market, deepen our dependence on imported oil, scare off investors, and make clean fuels even more expensive. It’s a short-termist strategy, at a time when China is betting big on hydrogen-based SAFs.
European policymakers should not fall for the same playbook used by the car industry. Instead, they should stand firm, uphold the ReFuelEU targets and double down on plans for e-SAF investment and industrial strategy. If Europe wants to lead in clean aviation, weakening the rules 15 months into the mandate would be the worst possible place to start.
