The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has confirmed that sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) use across EU airlines exceeded the 2% target set for 2025, marking an early milestone in the bloc's phased decarbonisation mandate for jet fuel.

The figure matters because 2025 is the first compliance year under the ReFuelEU Aviation regulation, which requires fuel suppliers at EU airports to blend a minimum share of SAF into kerosene supplied to carriers. The regulation's trajectory steps up from 2% in 2025 to 6% from 2030, with steeper requirements in the following decade.

EASA's confirmation that actual usage surpassed the 2% obligation indicates the supply chain delivered at or above the mandated floor in the first year, a point of consequence for airline cost planning. SAF remains several times more expensive than conventional jet fuel, and every additional percentage point of blending flows directly into fuel bills — fuel being the largest or second-largest operating cost for most EU carriers.

For network planners, the compliance data answers a question that has hung over the mandate since its adoption: whether refinery and advanced-biofuel capacity could scale fast enough to meet the 2025 floor without supply shortfalls or price spikes at specific airports. Clearing the threshold bloc-wide suggests initial capacity, drawn largely from hydrotreated esters and fatty acids (HEFA) feedstocks, proved adequate for the first phase.

The harder tests lie ahead. The 2030 step to 6% — with a required sub-share for synthetic e-fuels, which remain in short commercial supply — will demand capacity additions that current project pipelines have yet to fully underwrite. What has been achieved at 2% does not guarantee performance at higher blending ratios, where feedstock availability becomes the binding constraint.

The 2025 result nonetheless establishes a verified baseline. Carriers, fuel suppliers and lessors now have confirmed compliance data rather than projections to price into fleet and fuel-hedging decisions, and regulators have evidence the enforcement framework is functioning as designed heading into the steeper 2030 requirements.