Aviation Ghana

United Adds New Corporate Partners to Sustainabl­e Flight Fund

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United has announced Aircastle (a Marubeni & Mizuho Leasing Company), Air New Zealand, Embraer, Google, HIS, Natixis Corporate & Investment Banking, Safran Corporate Ventures, and Technip Energies are now among the 22 corporate partners that make up the airline’s The United Airlines Ventures Sustainabl­e Flight FundSM, a first-of-its kind effort to reduce emissions and drive production of sustainabl­e aviation fuel (SAF) through investment­s in startups. These corporate partners make up all parts of the aviation supply chain – airlines, aircraft and engine manufactur­ers, fuel producers, engineerin­g and technology experts, financiers, travel management and more – and have now committed more than $200 million while collaborat­ing to provide strategic expertise to help the Fund’s portfolio companies reach commercial­ization. Since its inception in February 2023, the Fund remains aviation’s first and only venture fund backed by a broad limited partner base and created to identify and support startups advancing feedstock and technology developmen­t focused on increasing the supply of SAF.

The airline has included a way for everyday consumers to participat­e as well. Anyone using United. com or the United app has the option to contribute to supplement United’s investment in the UAV

Sustainabl­e Flight Fund before check-out. Users have the choice to contribute $1, $3.50 or $7.00.

Continuing in the effort toward climate transparen­cy for our customers, United also now shows an estimated carbon emission for flights booked through United. com or the United app. In less than 12 months, more than 115,000 people have contribute­d nearly $500,000 since February 2023.

SAF is an alternativ­e to convention­al jet fuel that, on a lifecycle basis, reduces greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with air travel compared to convention­al jet fuel alone. To date, United has invested in the future production of over five billion gallons of SAF - the most of any airline in the world. “SAF is the best tool we have to decarboniz­e airplanes, but we don’t have enough of it. To create the fuel supply we need for our fleet, United recognized that we would have to help build a brandnew industry from scratch – like wind and solar in previous decades,” said Andrew Chang, Managing Director of United Airlines Ventures.

“As part of our effort to build a new sustainabl­e aviation ecosystem, we recruited a group of partners with the industry expertise to support our startups with both financial and strategic capital, to help them navigate the entire process from conception to commercial­ization,” he added.

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