Continental Airlines Flight Demonstrates Sustainable Use of Biofuels

Continental Airlines has announced that it is demonstrating the use of sustainable biofuel to power a commercial aircraft for the first time in North America.

The demonstration flight is being conducted in partnership with Boeing, GE Aviation/CFM International, and Honeywell’s UOP subsidiary using a two-engine Boeing 737-800 equipped with CFM International CFM56-7B engines.

The biofuel blend includes components derived from algae and jatropha plants, both sustainable, second-generation sources that do not impact food crops or water resources or contribute to deforestation. The algae oil has been provided by Sapphire Energy, and the jatropha oil by Terasol Energy.

During the flight, which will last approximately two hours, Continental test pilots will engage the aircraft in a number of normal and non-normal flight maneuvers, such as mid-flight engine shutdown and re-start, and power accelerations and decelerations. A Continental engineer will record flight data onboard.

The flight will operate with a biofuel blend, which consists of 50% biologically derived fuel and 50% traditional jet fuel, in the No-2 engine. This biofuel blend will result in a significant net decrease in carbon emissions relative to traditional jet fuel, as both jatropha and algae consume carbon during their lifecycles.