Joby Aviation, JetBlue and Signature to create pathway for utilisation of electric and hydrogen aviation credits

Joby Avi­a­tion is work­ing with Jet­Blue Air­ways and Sig­na­ture Flight Sup­port to forge a new path toward net-zero emis­sions in the avi­a­tion indus­try, which will incen­tivise the rapid com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of clean propul­sion sys­tems.

The three com­pa­nies are work­ing togeth­er to ensure the car­bon mar­kets for avi­a­tion include the gen­er­a­tion of cred­its for flights pow­ered by green elec­tric and hydro­gen propul­sion tech­nolo­gies, effec­tive­ly con­nect­ing today’s air­lines and oper­a­tors to the devel­op­ment of sus­tain­able solu­tions.

They will work to define the frame­work for the cre­ation, val­i­da­tion and even­tu­al use of these new cred­its on avi­a­tion car­bon mar­kets, includ­ing iden­ti­fy­ing a third par­ty to over­see and val­i­date trans­ac­tions. The com­pa­nies expect to con­firm fur­ther details of the struc­ture lat­er this year.

JoeBen Bevirt, founder and CEO of Joby Avi­a­tion, said: “With Jet­Blue and Sig­na­ture, we’re open­ing up an entire­ly new path for the avi­a­tion indus­try to more quick­ly move to sus­tain­able ener­gy sources. We invite addi­tion­al part­ners to join us and hope these agree­ments will be the first of many that link today’s air trav­el to the clean future of flight.”

The avi­a­tion indus­try accounts for just three per­cent of glob­al green­house gas emis­sions, but is prov­ing one of the most dif­fi­cult sec­tors to decar­bonise. The matu­ri­ty of elec­tric and hydro­gen propul­sion tech­nolo­gies will bol­ster efforts already under­way to use sus­tain­able fuels and out-of-sec­tor invest­ments to reduce the sector’s net emis­sions.

Cred­its are gen­er­at­ed by the reduc­tion in emis­sions achieved by elec­tric- or hydro­gen-pow­ered com­mer­cial flights in com­par­i­son to flights pow­ered by an ener­gy-equiv­a­lent amount of con­ven­tion­al jet fuel.

Oper­a­tors such as Joby will con­duct an analy­sis of air­craft ener­gy usage, mea­sure emis­sions based on the source of the pow­er used by the air­craft and gen­er­ate cred­its com­men­su­rate with the emis­sions reduc­tion achieved.

In 2020, Jet­Blue became the first U.S. air­line to achieve car­bon neu­tral­i­ty for all of its domes­tic flights through the pur­chase of car­bon off­sets from solar, wind and forestry projects all across the globe. Jet­Blue con­tin­ues to invest in Joby’s suc­cess through its ven­ture cap­i­tal sub­sidiary, Jet­Blue Tech­nol­o­gy Ven­tures.

Sara Bog­dan, Head of Sus­tain­abil­i­ty and Envi­ron­men­tal Social Gov­er­nance at Jet­Blue., said: “This part­ner­ship allows Jet­Blue to not only con­tin­ue to ful­fil our domes­tic car­bon neu­tral­i­ty com­mit­ment, but also evolve the type of off­sets we pur­chase and help sup­port the devel­op­ment of elec­tric and hydro­gen avi­a­tion — crit­i­cal levers for meet­ing the U.S. avi­a­tion industry’s net-zero goals.”

And also this year, Sig­na­ture set ambi­tious car­bon reduc­tion tar­gets and was one of the world’s largest pur­chasers of SAF. The com­pa­ny has invest­ed heav­i­ly in eco-friend­ly facil­i­ty design, con­struc­tion, and oper­a­tions in the last five years.

Tony Lefeb­vre, CEO at Sig­na­ture Flight Sup­port, added: “Sig­na­ture has long been the leader in mov­ing the busi­ness avi­a­tion com­mu­ni­ty towards a sus­tain­able future,” said Tony Lefeb­vre, CEO at Sig­na­ture Flight Sup­port.

“Today, we offer our cus­tomers the option to off­set emis­sions at air­ports where SAF isn’t read­i­ly avail­able with a book-and-claim mod­el. We’re excit­ed to expand that mod­el through this part­ner­ship to include the pur­chase of elec­tric avi­a­tion cred­its from clean oper­a­tors like Joby — all while sup­port­ing the inno­v­a­tive spir­it that brings us clos­er every day to mak­ing flight sus­tain­able for every­one.”

Joby is devel­op­ing an elec­tric ver­ti­cal take-off and land­ing air­craft that will qui­et­ly trans­port a pilot and four pas­sen­gers up to 150 miles while pro­duc­ing zero oper­at­ing emis­sions.

The company’s aer­i­al ride-shar­ing ser­vice, which Joby intends to launch in 2024, will enable rev­o­lu­tion­ary ways for peo­ple to move in and around cities while reduc­ing ground traf­fic con­ges­tion and car­bon emis­sions.