Airlines want £billions taxpayer handouts to cover cost of developing…
Virgin Atlantic, BA and EasyJet have been criticised for making ‘outrageous’ requests for taxpayers to subsidise the attempts to use more lower carbon fuels, and indirectly, subsidise air passengers. Airlines are lobbying the government for £ billions in handouts to help them cover the cost of developing new fuels, called “sustainable aviation fuel” (SAF). Freedom of Information requests by OpenDemocracy found Virgin Atlantic, British Airways and easyJet are among the companies demanding public money to help them meet a requirement to use SAF in future. In any year, about 50% of the UK population do not fly, and the richest fly much more than poorer people. So subsidy for SAF from taxpayer money in inequitable. The airlines claim they pay money to the government, through the ETS and CORSIA. But that small amount of money helps to fund public services. The airlines are trying to claim that boosting SAF production would increase jobs etc … There are not enough genuine sources of waste, that are not doing environmental harm, to produce much SAF – certainly not on the scale they want. The sector also wants “contracts for difference” to pay SAF producers agreed prices, even if the market price fell. Money for that has to be found from somewhere (taxing fossil jet fuel perhaps?) .Tweet Revealed: Airlines want £2bn handout to cover cost of ‘green’ fuel Virgin Atlantic, BA and EasyJet blasted over ‘outrageous’ request for taxpayers to subsidise their passengers Ben Webster (Open Democracy) 15 November 2022, 5.00am Airlines are lobbying the government for billions of pounds in handouts to help them cover the cost of new ‘greener’ fuel, openDemocracy can reveal. Freedom of Information requests by this website found Virgin Atlantic, British Airways and easyJet are among the companies demanding public money to help them meet a requirement to use “sustainable aviation fuel” (SAF). But green campaigners said it was “outrageous” that taxpayers – 50% of whom do not fly at all in any given year – were being asked to stump up for SAF. Under a planned government mandate, 10% of jet fuel will have to be made from ‘sustainable sources’ by 2030. Documents released to openDemocracy from a Department for Transport consultation last year show Virgin Atlantic demanded a “price support mechanism” to help build the industry needed to produce SAF in the UK. It said the mechanism – which insiders say could cost more than £2bn a year by 2030 – “could be part funded if government were to shift funding and incentives from road to aviation”. BA’s parent company International Airlines Group (IAG) also sought taxpayers’ money, saying development of the fuel could be funded by revenues from the UK emissions trading scheme. The scheme, under which participants are required to obtain allowances to cover their greenhouse gas emissions, raised more than £1bn last year and revenues currently help fund public services. EasyJet called for “direct price support for SAFs by the UK government for SAFs produced in the UK”. And Airlines UK, a trade body, sought “£500m of government support over the forthcoming CSR period to support SAF commercialisation and R&D [research and development]”. IAG said last month that the recovery of leisure travel since the pandemic had helped produce a surge in operating profits to just over €1.2bn (£1.05bn) in the three months to 30 September. Airlines have consistently failed since 2007 to meet their own goals for using SAF, which costs three-to-five times as much as fossil jet fuel. The industry says the fuel
