American Airlines and Google announced what they're calling the largest publicly disclosed sustainable aviation fuel certificate (SAFc) agreement ever signed between an airline and a single corporate customer. The deal covers 35 million gallons of SAF delivered over three years and is expected to reduce nearly 300,000 metric tons of CO2-equivalent emissions.
The fuel will be physically delivered at Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD) through existing infrastructure. The press release states the SAF portion will be produced from waste feedstocks and names used cooking oil specifically. Valero Marketing and Supply Company is the named supplier: American secured a new long-term SAF offtake with Valero as a direct result of this agreement.
Google won't take delivery of physical fuel. Instead, the tech giant receives the environmental attributes through the SAFc Registry — a book-and-claim system that allows transparent, traceable credit transfer. That means Google is effectively writing the demand check so American can source, purchase, and deliver physical SAF into a major hub airport, with the emissions reduction credited back to Google's corporate travel footprint.
The deal didn't happen in a vacuum. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed a SAF tax credit into law, and the press release credits that policy directly with making this volume possible. State-level incentives unlocking major offtake deals is a dynamic our industry should watch closely. It's one of the cleaner examples of policy translating into feedstock demand.
American's Chief Sustainability Officer Jill Blickstein called it "a critical step forward in reducing emissions from our operations" and pointed to demand growth as the core mechanism for building a more resilient SAF market. Google's CSO Kate Brandt framed the long-term commitment as "a vital demand signal to catalyze investment and bring more SAF to market."
That language matters for our industry. SAF production is still limited by insufficient investment at competitive price points; both companies said it plainly. Long-term offtake agreements like this one are exactly the mechanism that gives processors and producers the confidence to scale. More scale means more UCO gets pulled into the supply chain.
For collectors and haulers, this is a reminder that the restaurants you're servicing are feeding a supply chain that now has Google's name on it. For traders and brokers, Valero's role here signals that major refiners are locking in long-term SAF supply relationships. For processors and investors, the Illinois tax credit model is worth tracking — if it replicates in other states, more deals like this follow.
The aviation sector generates over $4 trillion in economic activity annually and accounts for roughly 2-3% of global CO2 emissions. UCO is in the conversation at the highest levels.
Source: American Airlines Newsroom
