Alaska joins biofuel flight race

The race to get aeroplanes running on biofuel up in the air is well and truly underway as Alaska has now announced plans to test flights with the green fuel.

Alaska Airlines will soon begin a trail into biofuel that will see a campaign of 75 revenue flights from Seattle to Washington and Portland to illustrate whether the commercial use of biofuel for flights is viable.

"Biofuel production is not at a scale to make it price-competitive [with conventional jet fuel], but we believe it is important to highlight our interest to show the biofuel industry there is demand," says Megan Lawrence, Alaska's managing director of government and community relations.

The fuel being used will be comprised of 20 per cent biofuel made from waste cooking oil and passengers on the flights will be advised that they are flying "greener".

Recently, Air China also undertook a biofuel powered test flight which lasted an hour and used a drop-in replacement fuel.

Posted by Joseph Hutton