The UK’s take-up of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is on course to fall short of the government’s 2025 target, according to official data reported by The Guardian.
Production data published by the Department for Transport (DfT) covering most of 2025 showed that SAF accounted for 1.6% of fuel supplied for UK flights – 20% less fuel in volume than the 2% needed to fulfil the requirement, the 26 December report said.
Introduced in January 2025, the mandate requires suppliers to hit SAF targets within the overall UK aviation fuel mix.
The mandatory target is set to rise sharply from 2% in 2025 to 10% in 2030 and then to 22% in 2040, including the use of second-generation fuels.
According to provisional Dft figures, the supply of SAF to date has been exclusively produced from used cooking oil (UCO) from Asia, mainly China.
The data showed that from a total of 10bn litres of jet fuel burned in UK flying until early October, just over 160M litres of SAF were used.
Final figures for the year were not expected to be published until November 2026.
A spokesperson for the department was quoted as saying: “These figures do not present the full picture. SAF volumes are continuously rising and not all suppliers have reported on the fuel they’ve supplied.”
