Capt Lauren Rogers

About the Author

Capt Lauren Rogers is a Logistics Readiness Officer (21R) and a recent Education with Industry Fellowship graduate and is currently assigned to DLA-Energy Europe & Africa where she works in the Current Operations Cell, supporting fuel procurement and distribution across the EUCOM and AFRICOM AORs. She has a master’s degree in international relations from the University of Oklahoma and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Boston University.

Acronym Listing

ATL – Harts filed International Airport (Atlanta, GA)

ASTM – American Society for Testing and Materials

DLA – Defense Logistics Agency

EU – European Union

IATA – International Air Transport Association

MCI – Kansas City International Airport (Kansas City, MO)

SAF – Sustainable Aviation Fuel

During 2023-2024, I was an Education with Industry Fellow (EWI) at Delta Air Lines, and throughout my time there I noticed some interesting things that I wanted to share with the rest of the 21R community. These thoughts shared may not be solutions to current issues but may spark an idea or discussion amongst our community that could lead to better logistics operations.

A Breakdown of the Delta Fuels Department

Delta Fuels is a 45-person department that falls under Delta Finance and is comprised of several sections: Procurement and Operations, Crude Supply, Clean Products and Trading, Fuels Systems, Fuels Accounting, Financial Risk Management, Business Development, and the Monroe Energy Team.

A different type of fuel cart at ATL. (Photo provided by the author)

Procurement and Operations is equivalent to DLA-Energy Defense Fuel Support Point (DFSP) role and Hydrants section in a Fuels Management Flight. This team is responsible for fuels procurement, inventory management, and quality assurance of the roughly 350 stations that Delta services. At larger stations there are fuel consortiums, comprised of the major airlines at that station, which will decide the priorities for maintenance and upgrades on the fuel systems at that airport and tank farm.

The Clean Products and Trading team has no comparable counterpart in an Air Force Fuels Management Flight, because this team does commodities trading as another way to lower the cost of fuel for Delta. They are constantly tracking what is happening globally as it affects the price of crude oil and jet fuel. The team will also trade the by-products from jet fuel production such as gas, diesel, or other Liquified Petroleum Gases (LPGs).

Fuels Systems and Fuels Accounting sections are similar to the Fuels Service Center function in a Fuels Management Flight. Fuels Systems make sure that Delta’s Fuels Manager Defense-equivalent-systems are running and produce reports that the rest of Delta Fuels team requires to effectively do their jobs. Fuels Accounting is responsible for processing the invoices from suppliers and coordinating with the larger Delta Finance organization.

Business Development is like the Fuels Knowledge Operations and Fuels Environmental and Safety Office (FESO) role in a Fuels Management Flight. They work in conjunction with Delta’s refinery team and Delta Fuels to see if there are areas where capital investment can improve operations.

For Quality Control (QC), it would not be feasible for Delta’s small fuel quality team to travel to all 350 stations each year to check the quality, which is why Delta is a member of the International Air Transportation Association (IATA) Fuel Quality Pool (IFQP) organization. This organization is a group of airlines that share fuel inspection reports and the QC workload worldwide. Each member of the organization gets assigned random stations to check every year and will provide a report of the quality and status of the station’s fuel and equipment to the airlines that fly to that respective station.

What Makes Delta Fuels Different from Other Airlines?

One of Delta’s competitive advantages, compared to other airlines, is that they own their own refinery (Monroe Energy Trainer Refinery near Philadelphia, PA), which supplies their jet fuel for the New York Harbor region. As a result, the Delta Fuels Team is slightly larger than other airlines because they need a team to source the crude for the refinery as well as trade jet fuel and the other products (gas, diesel) created by the refining process. This competitive advantage lowers the price of jet fuel for Delta and in 2023 it was a $0.10/gal reduction across the 3.9B gallons consumed. [1]

Hydrant pit at MCI. (Photo provided by the author)

Fun Fact for those that aren’t chemical engineers: making jet fuel is a similar process to distilling whiskey. The crude oil gets heated up to various boiling points and at those different temperatures, certain types of fuel are produced. The graphic in Figure 1 is a very simplified version of how chemical reactions happen, so if you want to learn more because chemistry is your thing, I highly recommending researching the oil refining process. For jet fuel, light and sweet crude is the preferred type of crude.

Delta Fuel Economics

Delta’s Fuels operations and Flight operations work together to conduct a process called “tankering” which accomplishes two objectives: operational or economical. For operational tankering, Delta will fly with the quantity of fuel required to fly to the location and back because the station cannot support the refuel requirement. For economic tankering, Delta Fuels team knows the price of jet fuel at the destination airport may be higher than desired, so they will suggest to Operations to fly with more fuel than required so they minimize that amount of fuel bought at the higher price.

Comparable to the Air Force, fuel is the most expensive line item for Delta, after labor costs. At Delta TechOps, the engineering and maintenance teams are working to make the current Delta fleet more fuel efficient via aircraft modifications. With each new plane that Delta brings online, it is ~25% more fuel efficient than their older jets in the fleet, so they can divest old aircraft.

What is SAF and how is it different from regular jet fuel?

SAF is fuel made from biogenic feedstocks, manufactured to the ASTM D7566 quality standard, and when blended with conventional jet fuel it meets ASTM D1655 quality standards (same as JetA). Once the feedstocks are processed to their usable form, the remaining refining process is approximate to producing conventional jet fuel. Most new refineries being built in the US are for renewable fuels to include SAF.

(Photo provided by the author)

That sounds great, why doesn’t everyone use SAF more?

The current high cost of SAF makes it cost-prohibitive for widespread adoption. Additionally, there are multiple technology paths to refine SAF and the industry is searching for the most-efficient technology. Just as with any start-up, there is a high failure rate, especially with the high-level of capital investment required to build a refinery. However, the hope is the investment costs will decline as technology increases and more refineries come online.

Individual states in the US have been incentivizing the production and consumption of SAF through tax credits. On the other hand, the EU created legislation that will require SAF usage by airline operators, airports, and refineries with financial penalties for non-compliance. The ReFuelEU Aviation initiative is a part of the EU’s ‘Fit for 55’ package which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030. [2]

Airlines have been so successful at negotiating offtake agreements with SAF refineries that even if DLA-Energy wanted to purchase SAF on a long-term basis, most of the supply is already dedicated to customers.

Delta Fuels is working to meet their eco-conscious goals and is working to source SAF, as they currently buy and consume ~4B gals/yr of jet fuel. Delta’s SAF offtake goal is reach 10% SAF usage by the end of 2030 (400M gals) and 35% SAF usage by 2035. [3] The US Aviation industry has come together and stated that they want to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, which means approximately 35B gals of SAF will need to be produced. [4] So far Delta has signed offtake agreements for 50% of the 2030 goal (200M gals) and is working to secure the remaining 50% in the fall of 2024. Delta plans to over-procure with the understanding that some refineries may not be able to obtain financing to complete projects or technological issues may cause significant delays with the production of SAF.

Conclusion

I thoroughly enjoyed my EWI time and my Delta Air Lines experience. I had great company coordinators who I thank for supporting my curiosity – Brig Gen James K. “Kurt” Vogel (ANG, Ret) and CWO4 Mark Covey (USN, Ret). They had a great mindset and told us EWI fellows at the beginning of our tour: this experience is what you make it, so whatever you want to do, we are here to support. Another thank you to Capt Will Gibbs (21A) and MSgt Zackery Patrick (1C8), my fellow Delta EWIs who were great sounding boards for all my ideas. I highly recommend that a POLCAT (2F) apply for the EWI program and go to one of the major energy companies (Shell, Exxon, Chevron, or BP) so we can gain that knowledge for the Air Force.

In the commercial aviation fueling industry, it is more common to see fuel tanks with floating arms (vs floating pans and suction bottom tanks which I’ve seen in the Air Force). The floating arm in this empty tank is currently resting on the four stands in the back of the photo and as the tank fills with fuel it will float to the top. (Photo provided by the author)

References

1. https://ir.delta.com/financials/sec-filings/sec-filings-details/default.aspx?FilingId=17258941
2. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2023/10/09/refueleu-aviation-initiative-council-adopts-new-law-to-decarbonise-the-aviation-sector/
3. https://news.delta.com/delta-cso-why-im-optimistic-about-2024-and-our-path-net-zero
4. https://www.faa.gov/about/officeorg/headquartersoffices/apl/sustainable-aviation-fuels-saf

The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the US Government.