A report published by the European Federation for Transport and Environment (T&E) last week shows low-cost carriers (LCCs) as among the top CO2 emitters in Europe. T&E highlighted that the LCC market was growing in Europe, and one out of every four flights in Europe in 2023 was on a Ryanair, WizzAir or easyJet aircraft, compared with one out of every five flights in 2019 being on a budget airline.
The countries in T&E’s report encompass the 27 nations comprising the European Union in addition to Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and the UK. The number of flights originating from these countries as a collective is currently at 89,2% of pre-COVID levels. Additionally, the carriers flying from these nations emitted 87,95% of CO2 in 2023 compared with 2019.
“In 2023, more than 6,7 million flights departed from European airports, emitting a total of 164,85Mt* of CO2. This is equivalent to the emissions of 80 million petrol cars in one year. Compared to 2022, this represents a growth of 11,2% in terms of number of flights, and 13,2% growth in terms of CO2 emissions,” says the report.
Ryanair was the top emitter in 2023 and responsible for 15Mt of greenhouse gases – 23% higher than in 2019, which accounted for just over 9% of all emissions. Although WizzAir emitted less than a third of this amount (4,5Mt of CO2), its emissions increased by nearly 40% compared with 2019.
While Lufthansa and British Airways are the second (9,5Mt) and third (8,7Mt) top emitters, these still fall below pre-COVID levels (26,7% and 18,7% lower).
Carbon pricing shortfall
One of the key findings of the report is that many airlines are currently paying a much lower amount for their emissions (€2,952 billion, or R60,4 billion) versus what they’re supposed to pay (€10,37 billion, or R204,5 billion) based on the European Emissions Trading System (EU ETS). However, one of the issues is that a significant portion of these emissions are unpriced.
“Not only did legacy carriers like Lufthansa, Air France and British Airways fail to pay for the full price of their emissions (respectively 83,9%, 93,4%, 84,5% of their emissions remained unpriced in 2023), third-country airlines like Emirates and United Airlines are also entirely escaping their climate bills,” says the T&E report.
T&E also found that, although Emirates and United generated similar emissions compared with European airlines, they were paying less than some of their European counterparts.
“This is why it’s important for the EU to ensure these emissions are covered by the current EU ETS scheme to ensure a level playing field between European and third-country airlines,” said T&E.
*Mt = million metric tonnes
