In this episode of ‘Sustainability in the Air’, Steven Fitzgerald, Director of Sustainability and Finance at Ryanair, speaks with SimpliFlying’s CEO Shashank Nigam about how Europe’s largest low-cost airline is approaching decarbonisation with the same granular focus on cost and efficiency that defines its commercial model.
Here are the key highlights of the conversation:
Ryanair’s 12.5% SAF target for 2030 (4:04)
Balancing growth with emissions intensity (8:30)
Building a SAF supplier ecosystem (12:52)
Trinity College partnership and SAF pre-certification (16:17)
Navigating 1G, 2G and 3G SAF and the FEETs mechanism (20:54)
What it would take to turbocharge SAF development (27:24)
Rapid Fire! (41:08)
Keep reading for a detailed overview of the episode.
Why Ryanair set SAF targets before EU mandates existed
When Ryanair set its 12.5% SAF target for 2030 around five years ago, the EU’s ReFuelEU Aviation regulation had yet to be introduced. The airline’s decision reflected a strategic bet on market signals rather than regulatory compliance.
“We set that 12.5% target about five years ago, before any SAF mandate in Europe,” Fitzgerald explains. “We see SAF as the most scalable decarbonisation solution for aviation. At the time, however, production wasn’t ramping up fast enough, so it was important to send a clear signal that long-term demand would be there.”
At its core, the decision addressed a classic coordination problem: SAF producers need long-term offtake agreements to justify capital-intensive investments, while airlines are reluctant to commit without clarity on supply and pricing. By setting a public target, Ryanair sought to signal credible future demand and help catalyse SAF supply.
So far, the airline has secured access to roughly 80% of the volumes needed to meet its 12.5% target through partnerships with established fuel suppliers across its network.
However, the SAF market has evolved more slowly than anticipated, which could make it challenging for the airline to meet its SAF target, says Fitzgerald. “There are still elements of that target at risk, as the SAF market in Europe hasn’t developed as we expected five years ago. So challenges will arise as we work to meet it.”
4 takeaways from the conversation
1. Applying the low-cost discipline to fuel efficiency
SAF alone will not get Ryanair to its emissions targets, says Fitzgerald. The airline’s SBTi-validated goal is to reduce CO2 per passenger kilometre by 27% by 2031, bringing it down to 48 grams.
SAF is expected to deliver roughly half of those savings, with fleet renewal accounting for much of the remainder. The airline’s order for 300 Boeing MAX 10 aircraft is a key pillar of this strategy: each aircraft is expected to deliver a 20% fuel saving while carrying 20% more passengers.
Beyond fleet, Ryanair is retrofitting its 737 NG aircraft with Split Scimitar Winglets, which could reduce the Irish airline’s carbon emissions by around 165,000 tonnes of CO2 annually. The carrier is also adopting variable cost index flight planning, and increasing the use of ground power units to reduce fuel burn on the ground.
2. Building a SAF supplier ecosystem
Ryanair’s SAF procurement strategy is built around scale and competition. Its annual tender process sees up to 40 suppliers compete to deliver volumes across more than 220 airports in 36 countries, says Fitzgerald.
He also outlines the three criteria Ryanair uses to evaluate SAF partners:
Credibility: proven track record in renewable fuels, often drawing on experience from the road fuel sector
Scale: how well a supplier aligns with Ryanair’s network, especially in key markets
Ambition: a commitment to developing advanced SAF pathways beyond conventional HEFA
Ryanair’s partnership with Northern Ireland-based Catagen, illustrates its emphasis on diverse SAF pathways. Through its patented modular reactor technology, Catagen aims to produce SAF from waste biomass at distributed locations, closer to airports and renewable energy sources.
Diversification across suppliers also serves a commercial purpose. By maintaining a broad supplier base, Ryanair aims to reduce supply risk and introduce competitive pressure on pricing as the SAF market develops.
3. Investing in research that benefits the whole industry
In 2024, Ryanair extended its research partnership with Trinity College Dublin through to the end of the decade, committing a further €2.5 million to fund the Ryanair Sustainable Aviation Research Centre, bringing total funding to €4 million.
Launched in 2021 with an initial €1.5 million investment, the research centre focuses on advancing sustainable aviation through research into SAF, zero-carbon propulsion technologies and non-CO2 emissions.
One of the most significant contributions of Trinity’s research is a SAF pre-screening capability, which can predict key fuel properties such as viscosity, density and surface tension using just one gram of fuel.
This significantly reduces the cost and volume required for early-stage testing, making it easier for new SAF pathways to enter certification. By identifying viable candidates early, the tool also helps streamline development and lowers the risk for producers working on emerging technologies.
Trinity’s research also looks at lifecycle emissions across SAF supply chains, including the impact of transporting feedstocks and fuels over long distances. The aim is to better understand how much of the claimed emissions benefit holds up across the full value chain.
4. Advocating for smarter policy, not less regulation
As SAF mandates begin to take effect, Ryanair’s attention has shifted from compliance to policy design. The key question is whether current mechanisms, especially within the EU-ETS, are strong enough to support real market growth.
Under the FEETS (Fuels Eligible under ETS) mechanism, in principle, airlines that procure power-to-liquid SAF at European airports can recover up to 95% of the price premium through ETS allowances, says Fitzgerald. In practice, however, the uptake remains limited. Of the 20 million allowances available this decade under FEETS, only a small fraction has been used, largely because third-generation SAF is not yet available at commercial scale.
Fitzgerald argues that the mechanism could be made more impactful by extending its timeline and broadening its reach. Greater long-term certainty, potentially through to 2040, could give airlines the confidence to enter multi-year offtake agreements with advanced SAF producers.
“If [airlines] had the assurance that FEETs would support them [long-term], I think it could really turbocharge SAF production.”
Alongside this, revenue certainty mechanisms under development in the UK, and being considered in the EU, could help de-risk investment by providing greater price clarity for producers. However, Fitzgerald notes that this has also created a wait-and-see dynamic, with some market participants delaying long-term commitments until the details are finalised.
Ryanair’s approach shows that even the most cost-sensitive airlines are willing to engage with SAF. The constraint is no longer willingness, but availability, and the industry’s ability to scale supply without breaking its economics.
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