Meeting in Brussels for the Spring Assembly of the Association of European Airlines (AEA) that LOT Polish Airlines are a member of, CEOs from Europe’s leading airlines called upon European decision-makers to reject calls from the European Parliament’s Environment Committee for excessively punitive conditions to be attached to the proposal to include aviation in a European CO2 Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS).

The details of ETS will be the subject of a decision-making process this summer involving the Commission, the Parliament and the Council.  The Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee (ENVI) has staked out an extreme anti-aviation position.

“ETS could be a potentially effective tool to address CO2 emissions”, said AEA Chairman Peter Hartman, CEO of KLM. “However, this is an industry which is undergoing fundamental changes in its business environment.

The Assembly heard that the combined shocks of rocketing fuel prices, a looming recession, a resurgence of inflation and tightening of disposable income could turn a profit of 3.7 bn euro in 2007 into a loss in 2008 with no strong prospect of improvement in the following years.

“ETS was designed at a time of $40 (per barrel) oil”, said Mr Hartman; “we now have $130 oil – and it could go higher.  ETS was designed at a time of 6% industry growth; we now have 3% - and it will go lower.

“ETS was designed at a time”, he continued, “when it was foreseen to function in tandem with the emissions efficiencies flowing from the Single European Sky (SES).
 
AEA urged decision-makers to join the industry in facing the harsh realities of the current situation as  consumers, jobs, mobility, and businesses are dependent on aviation, and European competitiveness as a whole is under threat.