When it’s done right, it’s amazing. The problem is that (here in the UK) it’s just terrible.
Example, going from London to Edinburgh
A flight takes 1h30m and costs £33
A train takes 4h26m and costs £178
Yes there are other monetary costs involved (driving to the airport, parking) and other time costs involved (you need to be at the airport 90 minutes early) but the headline price make a flight seem like much better value for time and money.
Trains are also often late or cancelled, this seems to happen much less with flights.
Until flights are taxed to hell people aren’t going change their habits.
No matter the number of seats, if you get 4.5L/100km/passenger or less you're better off traveling by car instead. That means two people in a Corolla pollute less than two people doing the same trip in an A380 filled with passengers.
Flying is horrible, 2.5% of emissions with twice the impact because it's released at high altitude, mostly done for leisure or to transport stuff that should be transported by boat and trains? Ban all non essential air traffic.
The first time I heard an aviation ceo spruiking this BS on NPR it was so clear that it was a complete lie. There was no serious attempt by a scientist to quantity emission reductions, just a lot of feel good marketing nonsense.
SAFs are just a cynical ploy by an industry that remains a climate disaster.
It is no sustainable product, anyway. We did the calculations some time ago, and the results were that in order to supply the airline fuel needed in this country, we would have to turn each and every piece or arable land into rapeseed plantations. Every field, meadow, winyard, whatever. Every year, without any rotation.
Air traffic is unsustainable in general, you can take four people, have them ride a Suburban with a big V8 and they'll burn less fuel to travel the same distance compared to doing it by plane and that's not even considering the anti pollution equipment found on road legal vehicles that is pretty much non existent for aircrafts.
Currently in production and use by China Eastern Airlines, although the production run is very limited (13 built, 7 in active use). It's high efficiency passenger plane with a range of 3500 miles, capable of holding 156-168 people based on seat configuration.
This vehicle threatens to compete with the Airbus 320 and Boeing 737 Max jets.
It should be noted that the engines for these planes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CFM_International_LEAP) was originally developed as a joint project by the American engineering company GE and the French Safran Aircraft Engines. Chinese firms bought the design specs, insourced the production, and are now rolling them out for productive use while their French counterparts are still stuck on old designs and the Americans are just shoving their planes nose-first into the tarmac.
About 4L/100km/passenger, no better than a big SUV with four passengers but the SUV actually has anti emissions tech and doesn't release it's emissions at altitude.