European airline sector fears competitors from outside the EU that…
European airlines fear losing out to rivals based outside the EU that can ignore the bloc’s emissions-reduction rules to become carbon neutral by 2050. The EU’s “Fit for 55” package sets out an initial goal of reducing CO2 emissions by 55% in 2030 compared with the 1990 level. This involves EU obligations to scale up the use of sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) to be blended with fossil fuels in all flights departing from European airports. SAFs come from sources such as municipal solid waste, leftovers from the agricultural and forestry industry, used cooking oil, crops and plants, and hydrogen. The makers of the fuels claim they have considerably lower CO2 emissions than conventional kerosene (though about the same when burned in a jet engine). SAF is still in its early stages, with very little produced – and it is much more expensive than kerosene, so flights using it would cost more. If people choose to fly first to Istanbul or Doha or Dubai for the next part of a long flight, it would cost less than flying from a European airport. Airports like Istanbul hope to grow massively in coming years. Tweet European Aviation Sector Fears CO2 Rules Could Clip Its Wings By Tangi QUEMENER (IB Times) 4th April 2023 European airlines fear losing out to rivals based outside the EU that can ignore the bloc’s emissions-reduction rules to become carbon neutral by 2050. The “Fit for 55″ package sets out an initial goal of reducing emissions by 55 percent in 2030 compared with the 1990 level. This involves bloc-level obligations to scale up the use of sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) to be blended with fossil fuels in all flights departing from European airports. SAFs come from sources such as municipal solid waste, leftovers from the agricultural and forestry industry, used cooking oil, crops and plants, and hydrogen. These technologies are still developing and the end product is more expensive, thereby placing additional costs on airlines obliged to use them while passengers will have to pay more for flights. The aviation sector is growing in Asia and the Middle East and companies based there could benefit greatly as they are not subject to these constraints, industry experts say. “The European airline industry has to live with the fact that it’s cheaper to bypass environmental reduction ideas if you hop outside of Europe,” Carsten Spohr, CEO of German carrier Lufthansa, said at the Airlines for Europe (A4E) aviation summit in Brussels on Wednesday. Spohr said an airline flying from Brussels to Singapore via Paris, for example, must pay through a carbon emissions trading scheme for the European leg of the trip. “If you want to go via Doha, you don’t need to pay emission trading, you also don’t need to be part of blending (SAF and traditional fuels),”
