Planes flying like geese: Inside Delta’s sustainability strategy

That’s in large part because its biggest driver of emissions, jet fuel, is also one of its biggest costs.

But the changes are also key as the company plots future global growth, as outlined by CEO Ed Bastian this week. “I firmly believe our next century of flight will be about connecting the world,” he said Tuesday.

In a later interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Bastian said he believes the company’s international business will ultimately become 50% of revenue, up from one-third today.

Those international flights demand bigger planes, longer routes and more energy, DeLuca pointed out, making energy efficiency advancements all the more important.

‘Real money to our bottom line’

This is where some of the newly announced ideas come in, including joining Airbus as a partner for a late 2025 test of the aircraft manufacturer’s “fello’fly” technique in which two paired planes fly near each other at the same altitude, allowing the second to benefit from the draft of the first — inspired by migrating geese formations. Airbus estimates it can cut each trip’s emissions by at least 5%.

“Some people would say, ‘Well 5% isn’t a huge benefit,’” DeLuca said. “Well, yeah it is. These are our biggest planes flying to the furthest parts of the world.”

Planes would be able to take off from different places and merge flight trajectories during long haul routes, explained Airbus Chief Sustainability Officer Julie Kitcher. “It’s all about preserving energy.”

Delta’s sustainability strategy, DeLuca explains, has involved a balance of both customer and employee-facing initiatives (like replacing plastic in-flight cups and earbud casings with paper), and real-time efforts to save fuel behind the scenes.

About 75% of customers have said sustainability is important to them, she says, but much of the work still happens where customers don’t notice it.

Delta has changed landing flight paths at LAX to save fuel, for example. Plus, the company’s “Carbon Council” of employees found ways to save 41 million gallons of jet fuel last year through process changes. “That’s just real money to our bottom line,” DeLuca said.

Then there are the experiments and implementation of physical changes to planes to make them more efficient. Delta plans to finalize changes to wing tips to improve fuel efficiency by the end of the year.

And it’s also participating in experiments like Airbus’ wing performance project with wings that can change shape during flight — mimicking birds in the air — and Boeing’s sustainable aircraft project with NASA that features extra-long, thin wings.

All eyes on SAF

But alongside these short-term fuel savings comes the exploration of long-term aviation energy revolutions. “All solutions are on the table right now,” DeLuca said, but “none of them are short term.”

They all could have global implications, though. In 2022, the aviation sector was responsible for about 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the International Energy Agency. That’s a relatively small piece of the pie, but one that has been growing.

While the power sector and other industries have made some progress reducing their climate footprints, cuts to aviation emissions have remained elusive, said Adam Steinberg, an aerospace engineering professor at Georgia Tech.

Aviation must place safety above all else, which has made progress slow, he explained.

Second, he said the technological breakthroughs needed to put large aircraft into the sky and keep them flying safely over long distances simply haven’t materialized yet. There are companies — including in Georgia — working to develop battery-powered and other alternative fuel aircraft, but they aren’t ready to meet the needs of commercial aviation.

“There is no other technology right now (besides burning fuel) that is anywhere close to mature enough that would be able to power the larger-scale commercial aircraft that really dominate the aviation market,” Steinberg said.

That leaves sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF, as the most-viable pathway for the industry to begin to draw down emissions in the near-to-medium term, he said. The fuel — from sources like cooking oil, corn, food and yard waste and woody biomass — can be used in existing jet engines.

While airlines have committed to buy a lot of it in the future, and the European Union is ramping up requirements starting this year, production has lagged given tight supply. Cooking oil, for example, is a limited resource, DeLuca explained.

“We used four times as much SAF last year as the year before, but it’s still probably less than 1% of our overall fuel footprint. And so it’s too early to remove anything from play.”

However, she thinks Delta has an edge on SAF adoption. That’s ironically thanks to the oil refinery it owns in Pennsylvania. (Delta is the only airline with one.)

That ownership has in the past complicated the airline’s relationship with sustainability as it previously lobbied against some environmental measures.

But DeLuca said that today, the refinery’s team is helping the airline understand the marketplace as they try to incorporate SAF. “We learn a lot through them,” she said, pointing out the refinery just started producing renewable diesel.

Would Delta ever acquire an SAF company? “Never say never but not immediately,” she said.

Parallel to Delta’s efforts are those for the state of Georgia to become a player in the global SAF market.

Some argue the state is primed for it given its strong agriculture and forestry industries.

Already last year, Illinois-based LanzaJet celebrated the grand opening of its new SAF production facility in Soperton: the world’s first commercial production facility that can convert ethanol into SAF.

Georgia will be at the “forefront” of the burgeoning SAF industry, predicts Katie Kirkpatrick, president and CEO of the Metro Atlanta Chamber.