Air Transport World Names American Airlines 2023 Eco-Airline of the Year

American Airlines has been selected the 2023 Eco-Airline of the Year, according to Air Transport World (ATW), the premier media company serving the information needs of the international airline and commercial air transport sectors.

The award marks the latest recognition of America’s progress towards its ambitious sustainability goals. With the airline’s most extensive fleet renewal effort in industry history and substantial investments in fuel of the future, ATW highly regarded Americans’ work to run a more fuel-efficient operation with more fuel-efficient aircraft powered increasingly by low-carbon fuel and new technology.

American airlines Insight view of A321XLR(Opens in a new browser tab)

Fuel efficiency is maximized by a new application called smart gating, which optimizes gate assignments at congested airports. Smart gating is currently in use at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, Charlotte Douglas International Airport and Miami International Airport and saves an estimated 1.4 million gallons of fuel and 13,500 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually.

Ongoing fleet renewal efforts have also helped the airline improve fuel efficiency by more than 10% since 2013, which has helped save 1.9 billion gallons of fuel and prevented 19 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. Today, half of American’s U.S. mainline fleet is less than 10 years old.

Emirates flew B777 test flight with 100% SAF(Opens in a new browser tab)

Leading the industry in sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) consumption, the world’s largest airline used 2 million gallons of SAF in 2022 and doubled its usage year over year. SAF agreements with Gevo, Inc., Neste and Aemetis bring the airline’s total low-carbon fuel commitments to more than 620 million gallons. American is also the first U.S. airline to make two direct investments focused on the development of both hydrogen-electric propulsion technology and the future of hydrogen distribution logistics.

American was the first airline in the world to receive validation from the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) for its intermediate carbon emissions reduction goal. American’s science-based target is to reduce its carbon intensity by 45% by 2035, compared to a 2019 baseline.