Three of Europe’s biggest budget airlines have hit out at new draft European Union proposals to exempt long-haul airlines from rules that would require them to monitor their non-CO2 emissions.
The European Union (EU) is introducing landmark rules that will force airlines to measure and report their impact on global warming from non-CO2 emissions. This would include things like nitrogen oxide, sulphur and contrails, the vapour trails which streak behind flights.
But according to a draft proposal of the plans revealed on Tuesday, international flights departing or landing in Europe from non-European countries will be excluded for at least two years.
It comes after private lobbying from the airline industry’s trade body IATA to tone down the requirements to only include flights within Europe.
Short-haul specialists such as Ryanair, Wizz Air and Easyjet argue that the exclusion of long-haul flights from the scheme would lead to “incomplete data,” undermining its purpose to “broaden our knowledge and understanding of non-CO2 effects in different places around the world and during different times and weather conditions.”
“Extra-EEA (European Economic Area) long-haul flights already account for 75 per cent of European aviation’s carbon emissions. They also operate in geographical regions where contrail formations are most abundant and potentially most harmful,” the three carriers said in a joint statement.
Contrails have come into the spotlight for their impact on global warming in recent years. The white lines, which form from layers of humid air behind flights, look harmless. However, they are responsible for an estimated 35 per cent of aviation emissions worldwide.
Some studies have estimated the skies above the North Atlantic could be covered by up to 10 per cent of contrail cirrus clouds, primarily formed from long-haul flights.
The budget airlines urged the Commission to either uphold the original scope of the scheme or use default values for any data not submitted by non-European carriers, which it said would still lead to a “credible” dataset and “fair representation” of the impact of non-CO2 emissions in European aviation.
“The bottom line is that we absolutely cannot end up with a blank dataset for the entire extra-EEA portion of European aviation – this outcome would be both counterproductive and detrimental to climate action,” they added.
The European Commission was contacted for comment.
IATA directed City A.M. to its policy sheet on contrails, which says IATA is “engaging initiatives to further understand the climate impact of contrails and potential mitigation,” including equipping aircraft with humidity sensors and performing contrail avoidance trails.