Alaska Airlines cross-country flights on biofuel blend begins

Alaska Airlines recently announced the launch of a series of cross-country flights using a biofuel blend. The airline began operating cross-country flights to Washington, D.C., with the help of a biofuel blend, which comprised of used fryer oil, algal oil, chicken fat and other parts of inedible plants.

According to Alaska Airlines, the 80/20 blend of jet fuel and biofuel will be used to operate 75 flights on the trans-continental route.

The airline in a statement said that the biofuel blend will be used to operate a daily Boeing 737 flight on Seattle-Washington, D.C. route. Besides, the biofuel blend will also be used to operate 3 daily Q400 turboprop flights on Seattle-Portland route.

The biofuel is akin to jet fuel, chemically. The airline says that flights can be fully operated on alternative fuel instead of blended biofuel. However, it isn’t feasible now to run flights using biofuel blend as the cost is simply prohibitive.

The cost of traditional jet fuel is US$3 per gallon now, while the biofuel blend being used by Alaska Airlines costs US$17 per gallon. The airline says that it expected the biofuel cost to go down steeply as mass production begins in near future.