The European Union was accused of discriminating against short-haul passengers and carriers after a December deal between the European Parliament and member states over greenhouse gas emissions.
The agreement amounted to toughening of the decade-old EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) rules as they relate to aviation, according to the European Commission, which said it “welcomes the deal”.
The proposed rules, which have to be signed off on by the European Council, the EU body where national governments meet, would phase out free ETS allowances for aviation by 2026 as part of the EU’s overall target of cutting emissions by “at least 55% by 2030”.
The plan is to “gradually phase out free emission allowances for the aviation sector as follows: 25% in 2024, 50% in 2025 and 100% from 2026”, according to a Council statement.
Some of the ETS revenues would in turn be used to fund sustainable aviation fuel, a potential €1.6 billion green fuel war chest, the Commission said.
The deal “will make the ETS system more rigorous to create a stronger economic incentive to reduce emissions and in parallel, we will help fuel suppliers and flight operators make the move towards sustainable aviation fuels”, said Franz Timmerman, vice president of the European Green Deal, which is an EU effort to have the bloc be “climate-neutral” by 2050, with the transport sector tasked with a 90% reduction in carbon emissions over the time.
Marian Jurečka, Czech minister of the environment, said he was "glad that we have found an agreement that effectively paves the way for meeting our objective of reducing transport emissions".
But the revised ETS rules are not to apply to long-haul flights from and ending up outside the EU or European Economic Area, or to Switzerland and the UK. Such flights would come under the emissions-offsetting regime established by the United Nations and its International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), a system known by its acronym, CORSIA, and which critics say is less exacting and less costly than the EU ETS.
Proposals to review the exemption by 2027 did little to assuage the concerns of low-cost and short-haul carriers such as Ryanair and easyJet, who said governments and the EU were favouring legacy carriers, many of them state-backed or funded airlines.
Unsurprisingly, Ryanair’s combative chief executive Michael O’Leary was first out the gate. "Yet again, Ursula von der Leyen [EU president] and the EU Commission have let down Europe’s citizens and Europe’s environment,” O'Leary said, just days after the red carpet had been rolled out for von der Leyen when she visited Dublin, the Irish capital and Ryanair's base.
O’Leary and Ryanair thundered on. The EU rules would mean short-haul passengers "pay an unfair burden", the carrier said in a statement, citing the Commission’s own statistics repository’s numbers that show long-haul flights to and from the bloc accounting for 54% of aviation-sector emissions.
Those flights, however, only carry 6% of EU passengers, the airline continued, slamming what it labelled "an indefensible exemption for the richest passengers".
O’Leary chimed back in, saying the Commission had left people from "peripheral member states" such as Cyprus, Ireland, Malta and Portugal, who he said "have no alternative to flying", facing having to foot the bill for the ETS, a de facto carbon tax.
EasyJet also criticised the proposed ETS rejig on similar grounds, according to comments provided to travel publication The Points Guy.
The budget carriers' remarks were followed by the Board of Airline Representatives in Germany (BARIG), an airline association of more than 100 national and international airlines operating to and from the EU’s biggest member-state, describing the agreement as “insufficient with regard to climate protection” and the source of “competitive distortions within the European aviation market”.
The prospect of extending the ETS to flights landing in Europe but originating from outside, or vice-versa - the level playing field for Europe's short and long haul carriers sought by Ryanair - was, however, criticised by BARIG, which said it would drive long-haul traffic away from Europe and give a competitive advantage to non-European carriers who make most of their money in other parts of the world and who would mostly be subject to far less stringent emissions rules, such as CORSIA.
Jo Dardenne, aviation director at Transport and Environment, an EU Commission-funded umbrella body for NGOs, accused governments of having “lacked the grit to push through a deal that was good for the climate and social justice”.
Average European families will continue to pay much more for their CO2 emissions than frequent long-haul flyer, Dardenne said.