American Airlines and Google announced what the companies called a “record-breaking” agreement for sustainable aviation fuel certificates (SAFc), representing the largest publicly announced SAFc agreement between an airline and a single corporate customer to date. The new agreement will unlock 35 million gallons of SAF over three years, resulting in nearly 300,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions reductions.
Under the agreement, American will purchase and take delivery of physical fuel for Chicago O’Hare International Airport through existing infrastructure, the SAF portion of which will be produced from waste feedstocks like used cooking oil. Google will receive the environmental benefits to help address its emissions from employee business travel via the SAFc Registry, which enables transparent and traceable book-and-claim SAFc. The long-term nature of this agreement, said the announcement, enabled American to secure a new long-term SAF offtake with Valero Marketing and Supply Company and reinforces American’s longstanding commitment to SAF.
“Our agreement with Google is a critical step forward in reducing emissions from our operations,” said American’s chief sustainability officer Jill Blickstein. “By working with leaders like Google who share our commitment to innovation, we’re helping to grow demand for SAF and support the development of a stronger, more resilient market.”
Kate Brandt, Google’s chief sustainability officer, said the collaboration “demonstrates how companies can work together to scale critical sustainability technologies.” By entering into this long-term commitment, she said, “we are sending a vital demand signal to catalyze investment and bring more SAF to market.”
In addition to SAF initiatives, said the announcement, American partnered with Google, Contrails.org, and Flightkeys to conduct a 2025 16-week trial that integrated contrail avoidance into the airline’s flight planning processes. The trial resulted in a statistically significant 62% reduction in contrail formation and a substantial reduction in related warming.
