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Qatar make world's first flight on natural gas mix
13th October 2009 A Qatar Airways aircraft this evening completed the world’s first commercial passenger flight powered by a fuel made from natural gas.The historic journey from London Gatwick to Doha took over six hours and was operated with an Airbus A340-600 aircraft using Rolls-Royce Trent 556 engines.
Shell developed and produced the 50-50 blend of synthetic Gas to Liquids (GTL) kerosene and conventional oil-based kerosene fuel and Qatar is to become the world’s leading producer of GTL kerosene when it is put into commercial production from 2012.
It is hoped that the fuel, known as GTL Jet Fuel, will contribute to diversification of aviation fuel supply. It burns with lower sulphur dioxide and particulate emissions than pure conventional oil-based kerosene, making it attractive for improving local air quality at busy airports.
The flight was the latest step in over two years of scientific work carried out by a consortium consisting of Airbus, Qatar Airways, Qatar Petroleum, Qatar Science & Technology Park, Rolls-Royce, Shell and WOQOD into the benefits of using GTL Jet Fuel to power commercial aircraft.
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