Aviation fuel obtained from sustainable sources was used for the first time on TK1823 flight that departed from Istanbul Airport for Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport on 2 February 2022.
While sustainable fuel will be used for one day a week on the chosen route, there are plans in place to use it on different routes on a wider scale.
Aware of the effect the aviation sector has on climate change and developing projects to decrease that effect, flag carrier airport took a significant step towards reducing the carbon footprint of its guests with the sustainable aviation fuel. Sustainable aviation fuel that will be used for Turkish Airlines has 87 percent less greenhouse gas compared to fossil fuels.
The fueling process is also facilitated by Turkish Airlines subsidiary Turkish Fuel Services (TFS). Sourced from Neste company, environmentally friendly product is stored in TFS fuel farm, and gets loaded to aircraft after it gets blended with jet fuel.
Next goal of the flag carrier goes further than using sustainable fuel for its flights. Global brand is conducting "Microalgae Based Sustainable BioJet Fuel Project (MICRO-JET)" with Bogaziçi University with the support of TUBITAK.
When the project is complete, first carbon negative integrated bio refinery of Turkey and Europe will start its service.
Turkish Airlines started over 100 operational optimization projects since 2008 in order to lower its carbon footprint and successfully implemented them throughout the years. With these projects implemented in every stage of the trip along with ground operations, 15 thousand 363 tons of fuel was saved, and 48 thousand 394 tons of carbon dioxide were prevented from being dispersed to the atmosphere during the third quarter of 2021.
During the first three quarters, total CO2 prevention was at 85 thousand 119 tons.
During 2019, the best year of global aviation prior to the pandemic, flag carrier airline saved enough soil to cover 63 football fields while saving 3 thousand 648 trees with its preventative measures in aircraft maintenance operations. Preventing machine and aircraft oil to reach natural water sources, Turkish Technic saved enough water to fill 784 olympic pools.
As for the packaging of the inflight products, global carrier opts to use starch-based material that can be easily reclaimed by nature.
During 2019 flights;
- Usage of over 176 tons of plastic was prevented by using bio packaging
- Combs and shoehorns were removed from travel kits, preventing 105 tons of plastic waste
- By distributing all travel and toy kits without exterior bags, 15 million 229 thousand and 348 bags were rendered unnecessary to produce
- 145 thousand 743 kg textile waste were recycled to textile products by licensed recycling firms
- By sorting glass, plastic and paper-based waste at the source, during 2019; 5 thousand 624 kg glass (6750 gram glass raw material saved), 67 thousand 784 kg plastic (1085 barrels of oil saved) and 252 thousand 167 kg paper (equivalent of 4 thousand and 287 trees) were recycled. ■