In the last 30 years, the airline sector has reduced CO2 emissions by around 50% for each passenger transported
In the last 30 years, the airline sector has reduced CO2 emissions per passenger transported by 50%.
The president of the Airline Association (ALA), Javier Gándara, recalled this Monday that the implementation of the Single European Sky, an issue that has been contested for 20 years and that is one of the great claims of the industry, would save 10% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from each flight.
This was stated by Gándara in the first conference of the cycle ‘Air transport and climate change: myths and realities’, of the Spanish Aeronautical Society (SAE), where he stressed that, taking into account that as a consequence of the fragmentation of European airspace each flight It is 49 kilometers longer on average than the direct route, eliminating these inefficiencies could save an additional 10 million tons of CO2 per year.
The president of the association recalled that aviation represents 2.5% of CO2 emissions in the world and that, faced with this, the sector is adopting “very demanding” commitments and investing “in more modern fleets and technological solutions”, in addition to offsetting their emissions and exploring the potential of “electric and biofuel aircraft to reduce the carbon footprint.”
The consequence of this is that CO2 emissions per passenger transported have been reduced by more than 50% in the last 30 years, according to IATA data.
According to ALA, there are market-based measures that favor the reduction of CO2 emissions, as is the case of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), with which aviation offsets its emissions on its flights intra-European and that, through the purchase and sale of ’emission permits’, each airline is responsible for operating within the established framework.
Javier Gándara also referred to the Carbon Compensation and Reduction Plan for International Aviation (Corsia, for its acronym in English) as another of the commitments that airlines also support and that, at an international level, aims to mitigate some 2,500 million tons of CO2 between 2021 and 2035.
Sustainable global and European measures
In the sector’s commitment to the medium and long term, the development of sustainable fuels and the electrification of aviation with hybrid and electric aircraft are other priorities of the airlines. In this sense, for Gándara, airlines are taking “great steps” to reduce their environmental impact.
In this sense, President ALA stressed the need for the Administration’s support throughout the process and added that “the measures adopted by the Government in the area of sustainability must be acceptable to the airline sector, they must encourage and facilitate this transition. , and do it in a progressive way ”.
Finally, Gándara pointed out that “the solution adopted to reduce CO2 emissions must encompass all the agents involved in the air sector, that is, manufacturers, providers of air navigation services at national and European level or airports.” “Any measure that is adopted must be global and, at least, at the European level,” he concluded.
