Air Canada goes green and gold

With yesterday’s departure of Air Canada flight AC864 from Montreal to London, the airline operated its second bio-fuel-powered flight, which is expected to generate up to 10% fewer emissions by using jet fuel derived from recycled cooking oil and through other fuel-saving measures. And as the Official Airline of the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic teams, Air Canada also had a number of Olympic athletes and officials on-board on their way to the London 2012 Olympic Games. Twenty per cent of the fuel required by the Airbus A330 used to operate the flight was be a 50/50 mix of regular jet fuel and bio-fuel derived from recycled cooking oil. This blend produced by SkyNRG has been recertified to normal jet fuel standards and can be safely used without modifying the aircraft’s systems. Air Canada’s first bio-fuel flight was operated on June 18 between Toronto and Mexico City as part of a series of commercial bio-fuel flights that took the secretary general of ICAO to the United Nations conference on Sustainable Development held in Rio de Janeiro.