AEG serves business, commercial and government aviation clients globally, priding itself on industry-leading customer service and flexibility, as COO Chris Clementi explains
Global aviation fuel provider Associated Energy Group (AEG) also offers international trip planning and delivers its services to corporate, commercial and government customers at more than 3,000 locations. Headquartered in Miami, Florida, AEG employs in excess of 200 people in nine offices across its global footprint. Its business aviation customers benefit from a private label fuel card, contract fuel, rewards, carbon offsets, trip planning and flight support services through a partnership with Jeppesen, plus bulk fuel supply, equipment and branding at FBOs, a high-technology platform and mobile app. Chris Clementi, AEG’s COO, answered EVA’s questions.
Where does your fuel come from and what does its journey to the wing look like? What fuels do you offer?
Among other suppliers, we procure fuel from all the major multinational oil companies, refiners, national oil companies and FBOs. Our role varies from managing the supply chain logistics of deliveries, which includes transporting fuel by common carrier and pipeline, to managing inventory positions, delivering bulk, or selling into wing on a back-to-back basis from our supplier’s inventory. In the US, AEG has access to over 100 truck terminals where Jet A is loaded for transport to airports and FBOs. We maintain agreements to buy back, market and resell from FBOs to end users, and we supply Jet A, avgas and SAF.
How do you work with FBOs?
AEG sells branded and unbranded fuel to FBOs and offers an à la carte menu of services that includes bulk supply, equipment leasing, credit card processing, software, branding, contract fuel sales and marketing. We are focused on growing the AEG Connect network, a group of AEG-supplied and marketed FBOs offering premier facilities and service.
It is imperative that we reduce carbon and other emissions. How is AEG as an organisation doing this? And how are you helping your customers do it?
AEG offers a voluntary carbon credit programme available to operators at the time of quote and order, or electable on all purchases to offset emissions from fuel burn. We are also active in providing SAF and planning SAF distribution as it becomes more widely available. Our goal is to educate our customers to help convert interest in SAF into demand, while using our fuel-moving logistics to make SAF available in bulk to FBOs and on an into-wing basis across our network.
How widespread is your SAF distribution right now?
SAF is not available at all airports and global production is quite minuscule relative to total jet fuel demand, but we have sourced and sold SAF in the US and Europe. Product availability will increase over the coming years, however, and AEG is preparing to make SAF available on demand at locations within the network. Another option for matching product with demand and enhancing SAF availability is to offer it on a book-and-claim basis. This way, SAF is delivered into an airplane at one location but marketed across the network with the cost and environmental benefit belonging to the purchaser even though the physical product is burned elsewhere. AEG’s network, customer base and administrative competencies place us in a unique position to be able to offer this to our customers.
As we look toward the future, fuel companies must evolve, moving away from the products they have traditionally sold towards SAF, electricity, hydrogen and maybe other alternatives too. How will AEG adapt?
We believe SAF is the future and we expect to be part of the transition in terms of education, supply chain logistics and distribution. There is wide interest from customers, momentum in the market and more capacity coming online in the near term. We expect incentives to help drive economics and demand, so hopefully we will soon see wider SAF availability and distribution – we’re very excited about it.
Your customers have plenty of companies to choose from, all of them supplying fuel that burns the same way… How do you engage with customers to ensure AEG remains their preferred supplier?
Jet A is a homogeneous product but service among fuel companies is not. The scale of our activity, depth of the offering and range of capabilities sets AEG apart. Our quoting, dispatching and invoicing timeliness, and accuracy, are our greatest differentiators. We have an amazing team of professionals with local representatives in markets around the world. The last few years have been transformative for the company as we’ve built out an easily accessible and competitive offering. AEG remained focused on extending credit lines and terms during the global pandemic to support our customers’ operations during difficult times. The marketplace has welcomed our alternative and we remain focused on the customer experience.