Lufthansa is set to be the first airline to use biofuel on scheduled commercial flights, continuing a slowly growing trend to green-er air travel.
The details in brief on flying with less emissions:

• Bio-synthetic kerosene is the biofuel to be used starting April 2011.
• Lufthansa presented "burnFAIR" - a biofuel project developed by the airline and supported by the German government - essentially an aviation research program aimed at the sustainability of air traffic, and environmental measures.

• April 2011, a six-month trial with an Airbus A321 on scheduled commercial flights on the Hamburg-Frankfurt-Hamburg route will commence with one of the aircraft's engines using a 50-50 mix of biofuel and traditional kerosene.
• The main purpose of the project is to study the effect of biofuel on engine maintenance and engine life, to see how viable it will be for other aircraft.
• The six month trial period will mean saving about 1,500 pounds of CO2 emissions by using biofuel.

Professor Dr. Johann-Dietrich Wörner, Chairman of the Executive Board of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), had this to say about the project - "Our "burnFAIR" project is designed to research the long-term alternatives to conventional aviation jet fuel. The objective is to gather data on biofuel pollutants in comparison with conventional kerosene, over a longer period. The measured pollution pattern related to various stresses during flight, and the composition of the exhaust gases, will allow us not only to draw conclusions about the compatibility of biofuel, but also about the maintenance needs of aircraft engines. We do expect a significant reduction in soot particles."
Commenting on the use of biofuel, Lufthansa's Wolfgang Mayrhuber has this to say - "We are pioneering this work in that no other airline to date has operated an aircraft engine with biofuel over a longer term...Our fuel is sustainable. No rain forest will be deforested for Lufthansa biofuel... we ensure that it originates from a sustainable supply and production process. Our licensed suppliers must provide proof of the sustainability of their processes."