Airline boss says consumers to pay the price for EU emissions trading

The boss of low-cost airline easyJet says air passengers will “inevitably” have to bear the cost of including aviation in the emissions trading scheme (ETS).

Speaking in Brussels on Tuesday, the company’s CEO Andy Harrison said, “It is impossible to say, at this stage, what the cost will be but, yes, the costs incurred by ETS will inevitably have to be passed on to passengers.”

Harrison says easyJet, one of the pioneers of low-cost air travel, was not “in principle” opposed to aviation being included in the ETS. “On the contrary, the sooner it is included the better,” he said.

But at a news conference, he said the commission had to “seriously” rethink its current proposals, otherwise “a large” number of airlines faced bankruptcy because of the costs incurred by ETS.

“We recognise our responsibilities in tackling global warming but the current ETS is poorly designed, particularly the proposal on auctioning.

“There is no justification for auctioning and certainly no precedent for the double digit levels of auctioning that are being suggested by parliament’s environment committee.”

He added, “Auctioning would simply be an additional tax without any environmental benefit.”

Harrison, who also took part in an environment committee workshop on Tuesday in parliament on the ETS proposals, called for the scope of the system to be widened so that it includes all aircraft arriving in and departing from Europe.

“I am calling on parliament to work with member states to ensure an ETS system that provides incentives for good behaviour, not one that will impose punitive taxes on all airlines,” he said.

He said many saw low-cost airlines such as his as one of the causes of climate change but, he insists, the opposite is the case.

His comments were echoed by John Hanlon, secretary general of the Brussels-based European low-fares airline association (ELFAA), whose members operate 500 aircraft, serving 150 million passengers each year.

He said, “We support bringing aviation into a well-designed ETS but the parliament has to realise that the wrong outcome could make it harder for aviation to achieve its environmental goals.”

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