Sustainable aviation fuel at the FBO: what is actually available in 2026

If you asked your line crew for sustainable aviation fuel five years ago, you would mostly have received a blank look. In 2026, the answer depends on where you are parked. In February, Neste and World Fuel Services signed a five-year extension that makes Neste-supplied SAF available at more than 100 airports across World Fuel's UK and European network, for commercial, business and general aviation customers. Jet Aviation, meanwhile, marked its fifth year of offering on-site SAF during the World Economic Forum in Davos this January, and keeps SAF on site at 13 of its facilities worldwide.

In the United States, Million Air Austin at KAUS and Avfuel put SAF into service on November 20, 2025, the first consistent SAF location in Texas for either company. The targeted blend is 30% SAF to 70% conventional fuel.

Where the fuel actually is

The broadest stock-taking comes from the Business Aviation Coalition for Sustainable Aviation Fuel, a group that includes NBAA, EBAA, GAMA, IBAC, CBAA, NATA and VAI. In January 2026 it reported that more than 100 FBOs worldwide now offer physical SAF uplift. That is genuine progress, and it is worth being clear about what it is not: at the vast majority of FBOs, the truck still carries only conventional Jet-A.

Where physical supply is unavailable, the coalition points operators to Book & Claim. Translated plainly: you pay for SAF to enter the supply chain at a location that has it, and you claim the associated emission reduction on your own ledger. The fuel does not go into your tank. It is an accounting mechanism, and there is nothing wrong with that, provided nobody pretends otherwise.

What it costs

In March 2026, SAF carried a premium of about $1,139 per tonne, roughly $3.45 per gallon, over conventional jet fuel in northwest Europe, per Platts assessments reported by S&P Global Commodity Insights. On the other side of the Atlantic, Jet-A averaged about $8.31 per gallon across US FBOs in August 2026. Treat both as dated market snapshots; fuel prices move, and this one moves a lot.

SAF is a drop-in fuel blended with conventional Jet-A or Jet-A1, so no hardware changes are required. In neat, unblended form, producers and FBO operators say it can reduce lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80% versus fossil jet fuel. Note the qualifier. Actual uplift blends, such as the 30/70 split at Austin, deliver proportionally less.

The policy weather

Regulation is doing much of the pushing. The UK SAF mandate requires a 3.6% SAF share of total jet fuel in 2026, up from 2% in 2025, and the Neste-World Fuel agreement is explicitly meant to support compliance with the mandate and the EU's ReFuelEU Aviation Regulation. Neste's Rotterdam renewable fuels refinery can produce up to 500,000 tonnes of SAF annually. In the United States, the 45Z clean-fuel credit was cut from $1.75 to $1.00 per gallon by H.R.1, enacted July 4, 2025; a Senate bill proposed to restore it through 2033 would reverse that cut if it passes.

Global SAF production in 2026 is estimated at 2.4 million tonnes, about 0.8% of aviation fuel use, up from 1.9 million tonnes in 2025. That is the honest summary: the fuel is real, the network is growing, and your share of the sky is still measured in fractions of a percent.

Photography: Matti Blume, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons