MAS to use biofuel when commercially viable

MALAYSIA Airlines (MAS) may use biofuel to power its aircraft in the future as it seeks to cut its fuel bill and reduce pollution.

"When biofuel comes out as a commercially viable product then we actually would like to use it," MAS chief executive officer and managing director Datuk Seri Idris Jala said in Kelana Jaya yesterday.

He was speaking after the signing of a memorandum of understanding on "MAS Goes Green" between the national carrier and the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry.

MAS launched a voluntary carbon offset programme that allows customers of MAS, Firefly and MASwings to make financial contributions towards reducing the effects of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere.

Last February, Virgin Atlantic made the first flight by a commercial airline powered partly by biofuel, a year after it launched an alternative fuel division.

A Virgin Atlantic jumbo jet flew between London's Heathrow and Amsterdam using fuel derived from a mixture of Brazilian babassu nuts and coconuts.

Sir Richard Branson, the chairman of Virgin Atlantic, said then that he hoped that biofuel-powered aircraft could be operating commercially within five years.

MAS, like the rest of the global airline industry, is grappling with rising oil prices and would certainly welcome measures to eliminate oil dependence.

So far, MAS has taken several measures to cut cost including freezing recruitment, raising fuel surcharge and fares on a route-by-route basis and cutting flight capacity.

At present, air travel contributes two per cent of climate-change gases, but that level is increasing as the activity expands.