Alaska Airlines flies on biofuels

Alaska Airlines has powered its first flights using a blend of biofuels derived from used cooking oil.

The airline, along with its sister company, Horizon Air, says they will operate 75 flights between Seattle and Washington DC over the next three weeks using the fuel.

The blend, which consists of 20% biofuels, will cut greenhouse gases by about 10% over the 75 flights, which Alaska says is the equivalent of taking 26 cars off the road for one year.

If the airline was to continue with this and power all of its flights on a 20% blend, over the course of a year it would be the equivalent of powering 28,000 homes.

However, at the moment there is no supplier of biofuels within the Pacific Northwest, although recently the Sustainable Aviation Fuels Northwest group identified companies that could potentially provide the fuel in a regional assessment.