Europe has just passed its first real test on sustainable aviation fuel, and the bill is starting to show up on air cargo invoices. In the first full year of the EU’s ReFuelEU Aviation rules, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) supply not only hit the mandated minimum, it comfortably exceeded it. That is a genuine environmental milestone. It is also the moment the cost of decarbonising flight stops being an airline problem and starts being a shipper one.
For freight buyers, the headline is simple: the rules that make aviation greener also make it more expensive, the mandated share only climbs from here, and the extra cost flows straight down the chain to the people paying to move the cargo. Here is what ACC is telling clients to understand before the next fuel surcharge lands.
Europe Cleared Its First SAF Hurdle
On 17 September 2026, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) confirmed that SAF supply across EU airports reached 2.8% of total aviation fuel in 2025, the first full year of the ReFuelEU Aviation regulation, against a mandatory minimum of 2%.
The numbers behind that share show how fast the market moved:
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Volume delivered. Of 39.3 million tonnes of aviation fuel supplied at EU airports in 2025, 1.1 million tonnes was SAF.
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A near-sixfold jump. SAF supply climbed from just 193,000 tonnes in 2024 to 1.1 million tonnes in 2025.
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Coverage went nationwide. SAF reached 121 Union airports across all 27 member states in 2025, 79% of Union airports, up from only 33 airports the year before.
“We are pleased to confirm that the SAF mandate under ReFuelEU Aviation was not only met but exceeded,” said Florian Guillermet, EASA Executive Director. For a first year, it is a strong result, supply, distribution and compliance reporting all moved in the right direction at once.
A Small Percentage, a Big Bill
Here is the part that matters for landed cost. A 2.8% blend sounds marginal. The price of it is not.
According to IATA, airlines flying to, from and within Europe and the UK paid a USD 2.9 billion premium for SAF in 2025, the extra cost of buying sustainable fuel over conventional jet fuel. Roughly half of that was the genuine price differential between SAF and fossil kerosene; the other half was compliance fees charged by fuel suppliers.
And this is being paid on a sliver of the fuel supply. Globally, SAF output reached about 1.9 million tonnes in 2025, double the year before, and IATA projects 2.4 million tonnes in 2026, still only around 0.8% of all jet fuel burned. The fuel is scarce, the production base is small, and scarcity keeps the premium high. A tiny blend, priced at a steep multiple, adds up to real money, and that money does not stay with the airline.
The Curve Only Goes Up
The 2% floor cleared in 2025 is the lowest this mandate will ever be. ReFuelEU Aviation ratchets the required SAF share upward on a fixed schedule:
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6% by 2030, more than doubling the current blend within five years.
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20% by 2035, ten times today’s mandated minimum.
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70% by 2050, alongside a dedicated synthetic e-fuel sub-mandate that rises from 1.2% in 2030 to 5% in 2035 and 35% by 2050.
Synthetic e-fuels, the most expensive category of SAF, carry their own escalating quota inside those totals. In other words, both the volume of SAF and the cost per tonne of the required mix are set to rise together for the next quarter-century. Whatever a SAF-linked charge costs on your freight today, it is the floor, not the ceiling.
Why This Lands on the Shipper
The mandate is written for fuel suppliers and airlines, not for the businesses shipping goods. But cost in air cargo rarely stops where it starts. Carriers recover their SAF obligations through fuel and SAF-related surcharges, and those surcharges become part of the all-in rate a forwarder quotes and a shipper pays. The greener the mandate gets, the larger that line becomes.
The catch for freight buyers is that this cost is not applied evenly. How a carrier prices its SAF obligation, which gateways it fuels at, and which lanes it flies all shape what any given shipment absorbs. A departure from an EU hub inside the mandate carries a different fuel-cost profile from one routed via a gateway outside it. Treat SAF as a fixed, invisible tax and you will overpay; treat it as a variable you can see and compare, and it becomes another lever in the routing decision.
What ACC Is Telling Clients
SAF is not a reason to move less freight or to panic about surcharges. It is a reason to read your air cargo bill more closely. ACC’s guidance:
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Unbundle the rate. Ask your carrier or forwarder exactly how the SAF and fuel components are calculated, and make sure they appear as a visible line, not a rolled-up “all-in” number you cannot interrogate.
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Compare across carriers and gateways. SAF cost recovery varies by airline, hub and lane. A neutral view across the market shows where the same shipment carries a lighter fuel-cost load.
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Plan for the ramp, not just today. With the mandate climbing to 6% by 2030 and 20% by 2035, budget for a rising fuel-cost line in multi-year contracts rather than treating this year’s figure as stable.
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Separate mandate from marketing. A regulated SAF surcharge is a cost of compliance. Voluntary SAF purchased to cut your own reported emissions is a separate, optional decision, know which one you are being charged for before you pay for it.
The Bottom Line
Europe’s first SAF year is a real success: the mandate was met and beaten, supply grew nearly sixfold, and sustainable fuel reached almost every major EU airport. But the same milestone marks the point at which decarbonisation becomes a permanent, rising line on the cost of air freight, USD 2.9 billion last year, on a blend that is only 2.8% of the fuel and legally bound to grow. The shippers who manage it well will be the ones who stop treating the fuel surcharge as a black box and start treating it as something to be measured, questioned and routed around.
Read the Fuel Line Before It Grows
ACC is neutral by design, we weigh every carrier, gateway and lane on the merits, including how each one prices the cost of sustainable fuel. If you want your SAF and fuel exposure unbundled, compared across the market and built into your rate strategy before the mandate steps up again, talk to ACC.
Sources: European Union Aviation Safety Agency, “EU sustainable aviation fuel supply exceeds 2025 ReFuelEU Aviation target” (17 September 2026); FlightGlobal, “SAF supply to EU airports exceeded mandatory threshold in first full year of regulation” (18 September 2026); IATA SAF premium and global-output figures via Air Cargo Week, “Sustainable aviation fuel: ambition to availability” (14 July 2026); ReFuelEU Aviation blending-mandate schedule (Regulation (EU) 2023/2405).
