Fleet Census - Orient Aviation

British Airways chief executive Willie
Walsh knows only too well how officialdom
can muddy the waters when it comes to
environmental matters. Head of the only
airline participating in a voluntary emissions
trading scheme, he is also paying a staggering
US$772 million a year to the British
government in Air Passenger Duty (APD),
a tax introduced on the back of lobbyists’
demands over environmental issues.
Walsh is furious about a decision taken in
December – it came into effect on February 1
– which doubles APD from $9.65 to $19.30.
Speaking to Orient Aviation in Tokyo, where
he was attending a meeting of oneworld alliance
CEOs, the fiery Irish-born airline chief
was happy to prove he has done his sums.
“If you look at our [BA’s] total CO 2
production, which is 16.1 million tonnes of
CO 2 a year, and if you look at the current
price of CO 2, which is about eight Euro
($10.50) per tonne, you can work out the
figure yourself,” he said.
“That $772 million would offset our total
CO 2 production four times. Passengers today
need to understand that governments – and
particularly the U.K. government – are
taxing them in the name of environmental
performance that goes way in excess of the
actual environmental impact of the airline.”
It is the sort of scenario airlines fear: that
more taxes and charges will be levied, with
the industry being used as a bank to provide
funds for the fight against global warming,
even though airlines are a minor contributor
to the problem.
Walsh and IATA want green taxes to be
replaced by emissions trading schemes written
with internationally accepted guidelines.
They may be on the verge of achieving their
goal.
Walsh was speaking just days after a
landmark two-week meeting of ICAO’s
Committee on Aviation Environmental
Protection (CAEP) which finally came up
with a consensus on guidelines countries can
use to incorporate international aviation into
emissions trading schemes.
These guidelines will go to the 36th
Assembly of ICAO – a division of the United
Nations – in Montreal this September, where
it is hoped governments will give them a
stamp of approval. Then it will be up to
individual countries to determine how they
should be implemented.
Walsh welcomed the breakthrough, as did
IATA director general, Giovanni Bisignani.
“We’re pleased that ICAO has echoed
IATA’s call urging states not to jump the
gun on emissions trading, but to wait for
the ICAO Assembly’s recommendations
in September,” said Bisignani. “Unilateral
action by states is not the answer. We need
a global approach that provides a level playing
field for airlines and avoids competitive
distortions.”
The IATA chief’s comments were later
taken up by the organisation’s communications
director, Tony Concil. “As an industry
we are against taxes and charges. However,
if there are economic measures that need
to be taken, a properly designed emissions
trading scheme probably offers the best way
forward,” he said.
‘The industry as a whole has
to consciously guard against
being cast as the whipping boy
for other agendas’
Chew Choon Seng
Chief Executive
Singapore Airlines
How would that be defined? “The
first thing would be that it is globally
harmonized,” said Concil. “This doesn’t
mean we want to have one scheme for the
entire world.
“Rather, all airlines should be treated in
the same way once governments have chosen
which scheme to introduce.
“We wouldn’t want to have the Australian
government say aviation has to buy 100% of
its permits and aviation needs to pay $150
per permit, then have the European Union
say you can get 50% of your permits free and
we’re going to charge you 10 Euros for the
remainder. That would create a playing field
that was not level,” he said.
The fear that a number of governments
may go it alone is not unfounded. Some
authorities have even suggested trading
schemes that would apply only to airlines,
a move that is firmly resisted by IATA. It
believes there must be a multi-industry
emissions market.
The European Parliament originally
drafted a “closed, aviation-only” emissions
trading scheme. However, the final proposal
saw an enormous change in the way aviation
will be treated, with a far more level playing
field. It also recognized that ICAO is likely
to come up with global standards.
Some airlines are strongly against
emissions trading, but they still prefer it
to draconian taxation. “If governments are
going to impose an environmental tax, the
result has to be that making the industry more
expensive is going to deter people from flying
and we don’t think that’s a good thing,” said
Concil. “Emissions trading on the other hand
offers an incentive to be more fuel efficient
and to invest in new technology.”
The new guidelines focus on those aspects
of emissions trading related to issues specific
to aviation and provide preferred options
for the trading systems. In essence, they lay
down rules for how emissions are counted for
individual airlines and how foreign carriers
would manage the issue in each country.
While emissions trading is central to
aviation’s role in fighting global warming,
it is only part of the story. Carriers remain
deeply concerned about the portrayal of
the industry by green activists and some
politicians as the industry causing the most
environmental damage.
In response, airlines are:
• Vigorously pursuing fuel saving policies
to reduce fuel use.
• Lobbying authorities for improvements in
air traffic management that could cut tonnes
of emissions.
• Looking to push technical advances
in aircraft and engine design to improve
efficiencies, save fuel and cut costs and
emissions.
• Launching an innovative advertising
campaign to put over their point of view and
get the “true facts” of aviation’s contribution
to the environmental issue understood (see
separate story).
IATA’s Bisignani sees all these as pieces
of the environmental puzzle. “Efficiency
must be our common vision in limiting the
2% of CO 2 emissions attributed to aviation,”
he said.
“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change [which issued a report earlier this
APRIL 2007 ORIENT AVIATION 11