In this episode of Sustainability in the Air, Maria del Mar Whittaker, Chief Corporate Responsibility Officer at Abra Group, joins SimpliFlying’s CEO Shashank Nigam to discuss why sustainability frameworks developed in Europe and North America do not necessarily fit the realities of Latin American aviation.
Abra Group is the parent company of Avianca, the largest airline in Colombia and Central America, and GOL, one of Brazil’s leading carriers. Across those operations, Whittaker is trying to reconcile two competing pressures: expanding air connectivity in a region that still depends heavily on aviation infrastructure, while reducing the emissions associated with that growth.
Here are the key highlights of the conversation:
Why Latin America cannot follow Europe’s sustainability playbook (6:50)
Fleet renewal and operational efficiency (10:01)
Building sustainability governance across Avianca and GOL (12:59)
A cross-border compliance book-and-claim mechanism (18:21)
Brazil’s SAF mandate: 1% in 2026, rising to 10% by 2037 (29:05)
Revenue certainty mechanisms and double-auction systems (32:31)
Educating stakeholders on Latin America’s unique constraints (35:28)
Agriculture, soil health and systems-level thinking (42:36)
Rapid Fire! (45:06)
Keep reading for a detailed overview of the episode.
Why Latin America’s aviation challenge is fundamentally different
The conversation around sustainable aviation tends to be dominated by European mandates, American tax incentives, and markets where passengers can afford to factor sustainability into their travelling costs. Latin America approaches the challenge from a very different starting point, and Whittaker is candid about why.
Aviation in Latin America is an essential infrastructure. In many cases, flying is the only practical way to connect cities, economies and communities as there’s no rail alternative, and the roads don’t always exist either.
For example, Avianca connects Medellín and Bogotá on a 35-minute flight. The road alternative runs through high-altitude mountain terrain prone to landslides. GOL connects São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro along a corridor where, as Whittaker puts it, “you would need to build a tunnel twice the length of a Eurostar” to create a rail alternative underground.
“These countries are still developing and face many urgent needs. They also have not been able to build road and rail infrastructure the way developed countries have over the past 50 to 100 years,” she explains.
This makes the cost consequences of decarbonisation as much a social and political question as a commercial one. With nearly 56% of Latin American flights operating through congested airports, Whittaker says there are still significant efficiency gains available through collaboration with governments and air traffic control authorities. But on SAF, the economics remain difficult: the fuel can still cost two to three times as much as conventional jet fuel, while abatement costs sit at roughly $400 to $500 per tonne of CO2.
At those levels, the cost of compliance could fall heavily on passengers who are already highly price-sensitive. Abra’s focus instead is on financing mechanisms that distribute the cost more equitably and reflect the development realities of the countries involved.
Four takeaways from the conversation
1. Balancing growth with sustainability
For Abra, credibility on long-term climate commitments starts with operational performance. Avianca was recognised by Cirium as a world leader in reducing emissions intensity while growing: between 2019 and 2024, the airline expanded by more than 18% while cutting its emissions intensity by nearly 20%.
The measures used include fuel efficiency programmes, lighter cabin configurations, higher seating density and progressive fleet renewal. But Whittaker argues that fleet renewal carries particular importance because the emissions savings are effectively locked in for the life of the aircraft.
Abra also holds the largest aircraft order book in the Latin American region over the next five years, and fleet modernisation is expected to remain the company’s primary source of emissions reductions in the near term.
2. A cross-border compliance book-and-claim model for SAF
Abra has proposed a novel cross-border SAF compliance book-and-claim mechanism, built around Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which the airline group also presented at COP30.
The problem it seeks to address is structural: Brazil has the potential to produce high-quality SAF from sugarcane-derived feedstocks with stronger production economics than many developed markets, but domestic demand alone may not be sufficient to support large-scale investment. Japan, meanwhile, needs SAF to meet its own decarbonisation requirements but faces tighter domestic production constraints.
Abra has partnered with Sumitomo Corporation do Brasil to implement the book-and-claim mechanism. Under the proposed mechanism, Sumitomo will produce SAF which can be used on domestic routes. Japanese entities could then purchase the associated SAF certificates through the Article 6 framework. In effect, Japan would absorb the green premium that would otherwise fall on Brazilian passengers.
“Brazil would essentially sell carbon credits or SAF certificates to Japan in exchange for Japan subsidising the 1% SAF that Brazilian airlines need to meet their domestic mandate,” Whittaker explains. “And that’s cheaper than transporting ethanol to Japan, let alone producing it there.”
The structure also helps create a bankable demand that SAF projects need to reach final investment decision, says Whittaker. She believes this model could support SAF scale-up not just in Brazil, but potentially across other emerging markets as well.
3. Why Europe’s SAF playbook cannot simply be replicated in Latin America
Brazil’s SAF mandate begins with a 1% emissions reduction requirement in 2026 and gradually increases to 10% by 2037. The policy is intended to stimulate a domestic SAF industry by leveraging the country’s biofuels and ethanol ecosystem.
Whittaker’s concern is that production policy alone won’t solve the economics for airlines. “Production incentives do not necessarily reduce prices,” she says, arguing that Europe’s experience has shown that growth in supply does not automatically make SAF affordable for carriers.
While Brazil’s SAF policy is aimed at building domestic production that could eventually supply both local airlines and international markets, Whittaker argues that without stronger financial support mechanisms, the immediate cost of scaling that industry could fall on domestic travellers.
Abra’s response is to focus on financing structures that reduce the immediate burden on airlines and passengers during the industry’s early years. One proposal under discussion is a multilateral revenue certainty mechanism for Brazil, inspired in part by the UK’s revenue certainty model. The idea is to distribute the early-stage cost across producers, government, airlines and multilateral institutions while giving SAF developers enough long-term certainty to secure financing.
Whittaker also points to the potential role of double-auction systems now emerging in Europe. Under that structure, governments would take on the long-term contractual risk needed to support SAF production, while airlines would purchase fuel over shorter operating horizons.
Whittaker argues that Latin America’s transition towards SAF needs to be fundamentally different from Europe’s. Policies have to account for the region’s lower purchasing power, different infrastructure constraints and aviation systems that still depend heavily on affordable connectivity.
4. Looking beyond carbon intensity
One of the more nuanced parts of Whittaker’s argument is that SAF policy cannot be judged on carbon accounting alone. Feedstock decisions also intersect with water availability, land use, biodiversity and agricultural systems that are already under pressure. That is particularly relevant for Brazil’s sugarcane-based SAF ambitions.
Whittaker argues that sustainability standards and certification frameworks need to account for broader system-level impacts rather than focusing narrowly on emissions reductions at the individual project level.
A production pathway may appear sustainable in isolation while still increasing pressure on water systems, driving indirect land-use change, or displacing agricultural activity elsewhere in the economy.
“We need to be extremely careful and conscious that the solutions we’re bringing are net positive in all dimensions,” she says.
Central to Abra’s strategy is the belief that aviation decarbonisation in Latin America cannot be viewed in isolation from the region’s wider economic and environmental realities. The issue is not only how to reduce aviation emissions, but also how those reductions are achieved, who pays for them and the consequential trade-offs that emerge elsewhere in the system.
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