Flight100

In November 2023, Virgin Atlantic operated the world’s first 100% Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) transatlantic flight by a commercial airline. The incredible feat was the culmination of over a year of radical collaboration by a Virgin Atlantic led consortium of industry leading partners and part funded by UK Government.

Dry scientific topics and world firsts don’t however make for an easy PR campaign – especially when juggling the comms needs of a huge number of partners, pushing the Government for change (whilst working with them as a partner) and activating in a global media climate that’s hyper aware of greenwashing. As well as ensuring the world knew about the flight and its importance, we needed to articulate the importance of SAF for the global aviation industry’s decarbonisation goals. This was a proof of concept exercise, with results made open source to benefit all, far from greenwashing. We were driving change and pushing our core message across the over a year long campaign: ‘If enough SAF is made, we will fly it’. The comms team developed a strategy that used the power of our brand and partners, a sprinkle of Sir Richard Branson and a heavy dose of lobbying to see this campaign take flight in markets across both sides of the Atlantic and beyond. The approach delivered positive coverage internationally with over 6,000 hits including mass broadcast coverage – x40 hits in the US and UK alone – a 10pt brand purpose score increase.