Liege Airport is now ready to receive, store and distribute sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) to airline partners, becoming the first airport in Belgium to announce such a feat.

The cargo air hub confirmed that aviation fuel installations and fuel storage facilities have been audited over the last months and procedures have been reviewed to accommodate for the arrival of SAF.

The airport shared that several of its airline-customers confirmed having talks with suppliers to arrange for the procurement and use of SAF at the airport in the short and medium term. It expects the first SAF-enabled cargo flight to take off very soon, citing news about the NATO Pipeline System (CEPS) allowing for the transport of SAF from 1 January as a positive indicator.

“With the airport-owned and -operated fuel installations being connected to this pipeline network, any current and new fuel supplier has now the possibility to not only directly and physically discharge SAF via road tankers into our fuel installations, but also to inject larger quantities of SAF into one of the intake points of the European (NATO) pipeline system (CEPS),” the airport noted.

In related news, Payload Asia learned that Air China, one of Liege’s airline customers, conducted a successful 12-hour commercial cargo flight from Hangzhou City to LGG using SAF for the first time. The bio-jet fuel was produced by Sinopec Zhenhai Refinery, a subsidiary of China Petrochemical Corp.