Qantas (QAN:AU) will start using biofuel to power its planes next year, the airline's CEO Alan Joyce announced during the Australian Airports Association convention in Brisbane on Monday.

Joyce said the cooking oil-powered flight will be the first in Australia and will sustain the country's aviation industry.

The announcement comes a week after United Airlines (NASDAQ:UAUA) flew the world's first commercial aviation flight on a microbially-derived biofuel Solajet, Solazyme's algae-derived renewable jet fuel.

Plans of Alaska Airlines (NYSE:ALK) and Horizon Air will also use a mix of petroleum and cooking oil for 75 flights from Seattle to Washington, D.C. and Portland, Oregon starting Wednesday.

The Eco-skies Boeing 737-800 plane fueled with 40 percent Solajet and 60 percent petroleum-derived jet fuel flew from Houston's international airport at 10:30 a.m. on Nov. 7 and landed at Chicago's O'Hare international airport afternoon of the same day.

Solajet, which is manufactured via Solazyme's proprietary fermentation process and renewable jet fuel processing technology from Honeywell's (NYSE:HON) UOP, will be used by Qantas planes. The technology uses algae to break down agricultural waste into algal oil that can then be tailored to produce jet fuel.

Qantas signed in February a deal with the Silicon Valley, San Francisco-based Solazymes (NASDAQ: SZYM) to test the Solajet.
Commenting on the deal in February, Joyce told Businessgreen.com said the use of the Solajet could "build the case for biofuel production in Australia."

"We believe this is important not just for Qantas but for the Australian economy as a whole, given the global emergence of green technologies and their potential to drive growth and create jobs," Joyce said, according to Businessgreen.com.
Qantas consumes an estimated 6 billion litres of aviation fuel every year.