Hydrogen and Sustainable Aviation Fuel: Wizz Air’s Vision for the Future

by Miquel Ros (Aerotime Hub) ... In June 2023, Wizz Air was awarded the title of ‘Most Sustainable Low-Cost Airline’ at the World Finance Sustainability Awards 2023 for the third year in a row.

The award follows other forms of recognition received by the Central and Eastern European low-cost carrier in this field, including CAPA’s Global and EMEA Environmental Sustainability Airline Group of the Year in 2022.

It is no secret that Wizz Air’s fleet investment program plays a major role in boosting the airline’s sustainability credentials.

When it comes to the long term, Moynihan (Yvonne Moynihan, Corporate and ESG Officer at Wizz Air Group) is clear: hydrogen is the answer.

She revealed that Wizz Air is onboard with the Airbus ZEROe project, the European manufacturer’s plan to launch a family of hydrogen-powered aircraft by 2035. Wizz Air plays a consultative role in the project, helping Airbus map out the requirements such hydrogen-powered aircraft would need to have if they are to replace the current generation of airliners.

Wizz is also active in another separate project called the Alliance for Zero Emission Aviation (AZEA), a pan-European public-private initiative aimed at facilitating the roll-out of hydrogen infrastructure for the aviation sector in Europe.

However, Moynihan is under no illusion about the magnitude of the challenge ahead.

“Hydrogen is obviously very far off right now, so we need to bridge the gap,” she noted.

And it is at this point, the medium term, when sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) comes into play.

“We’ve got a very clear SAF strategy, and we have taken a portfolio approach,” she explained. “First, we have offtake agreements with a number of major SAF suppliers, energy companies, such as Neste, Cepsa and OMV in order to secure SAF supplies in the future. But also, because of supply limitations, we have taken a bit of an approach that is a bit different to that of our competitors: we have recently announced two equity investments in the SAF space.”

Here, Moynihan is referring to investments Wizz Air has made in two separate Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) production projects.

“We intend to get cost and supply benefits by securing an investment. This is part of our portfolio approach,” she explained.

One of these projects is Firefly, a startup that plans to produce SAF in the United Kingdom using sewage sludge as feedstock.

The other investment is United States-based CleanJoule, another SAF production startup, which was made as part of a consortium including two other low-cost airlines of the Indigo Partners family, Volaris and Frontier. CleanJoule aims to produce SAF out of agricultural residues and waste biomass.

“It’s a project led by a bunch of very smart tech guys that have come up with a novel way to produce SAF. There is no plant yet, this is why we are investing,” Moynihan explained, emphasizing the prospective nature of this investment.

She added: “We are doubling down on making sure we are not going to be restricted by either cost or supply in the future and we will be able to meet the EU mandates that start coming into play in 2025. The first significant threshold is going to be 2% by 2025 and 6% by 2030, and we want to make sure we are ready. We want to be a first mover because we know that SAF will be in high demand in the near future.”

From speaking to Moynihan, it is clear that there is an acute awareness of the need to secure SAF supplies, yet, at the same time, there is much uncertainty around this within the industry.

“It’s hard to see in the short-term what the fuel producers are doing. This is why we are talking to them. But there is still not much clarity about what the volumes are going to be,” Moynihan said, before moving on to compare the situation on both sides of the Atlantic. “In the US there are already significant production volumes because they’ve got lots of tax write-offs and incentives. And they don’t have mandates over there. Within the EU we have the stick approach.

“Now we are hoping that once the Net-Zero Industry Act [a package of measures approved by the EU Commission to support and promote clean technologies in the EU – ed. note] is out there, funding starts to filter and cascade through and that we are going to see a similar situation to that in America.”

Wizz Air is also lobbying the different national governments within the EU to advocate for national SAF strategies and to encourage governments to start planning for a ramping up of SAF supply. This includes looking at how SAF is going to be obtained and where is it going to come from if the industry is to comply with the EU mandate.”

However, Moynihan remains optimistic. “In a year’s time things will look a lot different and we are going to have a lot more certainty and clarity,” she said.

Regardless of whether governments have done their SAF supply homework or not, Wizz Air has already laid out its SAF procurement strategy up until 2030.

But what is the most significant challenge faced by airlines when advancing in the path of sustainability?

“SAF is a challenge because of the limitations there are now in the market, its cost and supply,” Moynihan explained. “The fact that SAF is still two to three times more expensive is a huge concern for us because we are an ultra-low-cost carrier.

“Ours is a cost game and we need to know what costs are in order to price our tickets. So, cost is super important to us. Uncertainty makes this a big challenge.”

She added: “At the moment there is not enough SAF supply and there is lots of demand, so we are trying to get our hands on as much SAF as we can.”

Then there is, of course, the inevitable question regarding claims posited by climate activists that airlines are systematically engaging in greenwashing practices.

However, Moynihan’s answer is sharp and straightforward. “We don’t fear being accused of greenwashing because we rely on facts,” she said. “We rely [on] and get our information from consumers. We are very driven by what the consumer sentiment is and how they feel about our strategy in sustainability.” READ MORE