A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in 2007, Curt came to&nbsp;the publication&nbsp;from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;sister publication&nbsp;Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s&nbsp; Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with&nbsp;Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.

Business Aviation Services Editor

Curt Epstein

With crude oil prices hovering around $100 a barrel, down from the peak of more than $112 per barrel seen earlier this month, some in the industry are pondering the knock-on effects on sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and whether petroleum can rise so high to erase the pricing delta between the two.&nbsp;Since the start of the Iran war, the average price per gallon of jet fuel in the U.S. has more than doubled, while in Europe it has reached record highs, with the cost of refined jet-A topping $250 a barrel.
“It’s tempting to draw a straight line between high oil prices and a moment where SAF suddenly ‘wins’ on cost,” said Emily Tobler, 4Air’s sustainability program manager. “In a severe scenario, where crude triples [in price], we could see retail jet fuel prices approaching the mid- to high teens per gallon in certain markets, but those prices would reflect extreme disruption, shortages, and rationing, not a healthy market where cost parity between SAF and conventional jet fuel suddenly flips.”
She noted that in Europe, where mandates have required the use of SAF, the price of neat, unblended SAF has increased less rapidly than jet-A. Before the start of hostilities, neat SAF was trading at under $7 a gallon, but rose to $8.50 per gallon&nbsp;by late March. The “green premium,” the pricing delta between jet-A and blended SAF, has narrowed by 30% in that span.
Yet, Tobler explained, while the ultimate goal is to get to 100% renewable SAF, it’s unlikely that it will become cheaper than conventional fuel any time soon. “A more useful way to frame this is not ‘when does SAF become cheaper’ but what role does SAF play in fuel resilience?” she told AIN. “As jet fuel prices surge, there’s a renewed use case for homegrown, renewable fuel.”

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News and issues relating to the aerospace industry that are related to the science, engineering and business of flight in space involving civil, industrial and military applications, and similar topics related to flight in the atmosphere of the Earth that are not covered more directly by other AINonline subject channels. In other words, both astronautical and aeronautical subjects, except for those aeronautical topics that are specifically covered elsewhere on this website.

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