Airlines want £billions taxpayer handouts to cover cost of developing “sustainable” jet fuel
Virgin Atlantic, BA and EasyJet have been criticised for making ‘outrageous’ requests for taxpayers to subsidise the attempts to use more lower carbon fuels, and indirectly, subsidise air passengers. Airlines are lobbying the government for £ billions in handouts to help them cover the cost of developing new fuels, called “sustainable aviation fuel” (SAF). Freedom of Information requests by OpenDemocracy found Virgin Atlantic, British Airways and easyJet are among the companies demanding public money to help them meet a requirement to use SAF in future. In any year, about 50% of the UK population do not fly, and the richest fly much more than poorer people. So subsidy for SAF from taxpayer money in inequitable. The airlines claim they pay money to the government, through the ETS and CORSIA. But that small amount of money helps to fund public services. The airlines are trying to claim that boosting SAF production would increase jobs etc … There are not enough genuine sources of waste, that are not doing environmental harm, to produce much SAF – certainly not on the scale they want. The sector also wants “contracts for difference” to pay SAF producers agreed prices, even if the market price fell. Money for that has to be found from somewhere (taxing fossil jet fuel perhaps?)
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Revealed: Airlines want £2bn handout to cover cost of ‘green’ fuel
Virgin Atlantic, BA and EasyJet blasted over ‘outrageous’ request for taxpayers to subsidise their passengers
Ben Webster (Open Democracy)
15 November 2022, 5.00am
Airlines are lobbying the government for billions of pounds in handouts to help them cover the cost of new ‘greener’ fuel, openDemocracy can reveal.
Freedom of Information requests by this website found Virgin Atlantic, British Airways and easyJet are among the companies demanding public money to help them meet a requirement to use “sustainable aviation fuel” (SAF).
But green campaigners said it was “outrageous” that taxpayers – 50% of whom do not fly at all in any given year – were being asked to stump up for SAF. Under a planned government mandate, 10% of jet fuel will have to be made from ‘sustainable sources’ by 2030.
Documents released to openDemocracy from a Department for Transport consultation last year show Virgin Atlantic demanded a “price support mechanism” to help build the industry needed to produce SAF in the UK. It said the mechanism – which insiders say could cost more than £2bn a year by 2030 – “could be part funded if government were to shift funding and incentives from road to aviation”.
BA’s parent company International Airlines Group (IAG) also sought taxpayers’ money, saying development of the fuel could be funded by revenues from the UK emissions trading scheme. The scheme, under which participants are required to obtain allowances to cover their greenhouse gas emissions, raised more than £1bn last year and revenues currently help fund public services.
EasyJet called for “direct price support for SAFs by the UK government for SAFs produced in the UK”.
And Airlines UK, a trade body, sought “£500m of government support over the forthcoming CSR period to support SAF commercialisation and R&D [research and development]”.
IAG said last month that the recovery of leisure travel since the pandemic had helped produce a surge in operating profits to just over €1.2bn (£1.05bn) in the three months to 30 September.
Airlines have consistently failed since 2007 to meet their own goals for using SAF, which costs three-to-five times as much as fossil jet fuel.
The industry says the fuel is made from waste products such as used cooking oil and claims that it delivers up to 80% emissions savings compared to fossil jet fuel.
But Alethea Warrington, campaigns manager at climate charity Possible, said there were very limited supplies of genuinely waste feedstock to make into alternative fuels, meaning airlines were exaggerating the potential for SAF to help them reduce their emissions.
Airlines already benefit from tax-free jet fuel on airline tickets. [And no VAT].
Green campaigners say passengers, particularly frequent flyers, should pay the costs of decarbonising aviation because their trips are causing the pollution and they tend to be wealthier than the average person.
In the UK, 15% of people take 70% of all flights, according to analysis of ONS travel data.
The poorest 20% of the population fly five times less frequently than the richest 20%.
Airlines want the government to guarantee “contracts for difference” (CFDs), under which SAF producers receive agreed prices for their fuel even if market prices fall below those prices. (A CFD means they would theoretically lose out if the market price moves above the agreed price, though SAF is likely to remain much more expensive than fossil jet fuel.)
An aviation industry source said the cost of funding CFDs could be about £2.1bn a year by 2030.
An internal paper produced last year by aviation and fuel industry trade bodies stated that options for funding SAF production included “general taxation… to avoid overburdening the aviation industry in the post-Covid period” and “a levy that ultimately falls on air passengers (e.g. via a fuel surcharge or other options)”.
The paper, obtained by openDemocracy, added: “The lack of SAF investment in the UK points to a clear market failure, on which it is reasonable to spend taxpayers’ money.”
The industry is now preparing a new proposal for funding SAF due to be published next month.
Fairer funding
Our source said there were differing views within the industry on the question of how to fund CFDs. Some companies want to press the government for subsidies via the emissions trading scheme but others argue that the Treasury is so strapped for cash that the CFDs will have to be funded via a levy on sales of fossil jet fuel which would ultimately be paid by passengers.
Campaign group Transport & Environment said a tax on fossil jet fuel would be a much fairer way of funding SAF use.
It has calculated, in a new study published today, that taxing fuel delivered to aircraft in the UK at the same rate motorists pay for road fuel could raise £6.7bn a year for the Treasury.
The group’s UK policy manager Matt Finch told openDemocracy: “It’s outrageous that the airline industry expects the taxpayer to fully pay for it to decarbonise, especially considering the miniscule levels of tax it currently pays.
“Applying a tax to jet fuel – in exactly the same way as Britain’s drivers are charged when they fill their tanks up – makes sense from an environmental and fairness point of view. This would also provide the government with some funds to invest back into SAF and zero-emission aircraft.”
Warrington from the group Possible added: “With an ongoing cost of living crisis, it would be groundless for even more public money to go to airlines so the wealthiest in our society can continue to pollute while claiming to be going green.
“What we need instead is bold investment in an affordable and accessible rail network, so we can clear the runway in favour of climate-friendly travel.”
Biofuel production has been linked to deforestation by increasing demand for palm oil and some suppliers have been accused of passing off virgin vegetable oil as used because it attracts a higher price.
“The harm caused by the climate crisis is escalating, but the aviation industry is hell-bent on pursuing unlimited growth by claiming to fly ‘sustainably’ using alternative fuels,” said Warrington.
“The reality is that these fuels, made from waste or biomass, offer at best only marginal improvements on the fossil fuels they are substituting for when it comes to their impact on the climate.” [When burned in a jet engine, at altitude, they emit CO2 and cause about the same non-CO2 impacts as from conventional jet fuel, that probably double the overall climate impact. AW comment].
The government has already committed £217m to help develop a SAF production industry in the UK.
Airlines, airports and SAF producers this month sent a joint letter to transport secretary Mark Harper asking the government to provide “price certainty” to enable investment in up to 12 SAF plants in the UK.
The letter, obtained by openDemocracy, said a UK SAF industry “could boost the UK economy by up to £7bn by the end of this decade, through construction and SAF production. More than 20,000 construction jobs would be needed to build UK SAF plants and the industry would directly employ thousands more people in areas from Teesside and Humberside to south Wales and the north-west.”
An Airlines UK spokesperson said: “This decade airlines will be paying hundreds of millions of pounds a year for the carbon they emit through schemes like the UK and EU Emission Trading Schemes and the UN-sponsored global Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation.
“As will happen under the EU ETS, we believe that a proportion of the revenue raised from airlines should be earmarked to support aviation decarbonisation, including support for a UK SAF industry, and zero emission flight technology.”
An easyJet spokesperson said: “Decarbonising aviation is a vital step for the UK to reach net zero while preserving the social and economic benefits of flying.
“It is important there is price stability in SAFs to encourage long-term investment. We believe there is a role for using the funds aviation contributes – for example, of carbon charges or APD – to support the transition.”
A government source said no decisions had been made on a price support mechanism for SAF.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/virgin-atlantic-ba-easyjet-sustainable-aviation-fuel-handout/
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Reduction in flying only way to achieve net zero, warns sustainability expert
The only way the aviation sector will reach net zero by 2050 is if there is a reduction in the number of people flying. Cait Hewitt, policy director at Aviation Environment Federation, warned Travel Weekly’s Sustainability Summit that the aviation sector does “not yet have the technologies” required to achieve the target. The industry wants a lot more government financial assistance to produce more SAF, and also perhaps “green” hydrogen. But realistically, there is not going to be a lot of these fuels for many years to come, if ever. There will certainly not be enough for the sector not only to continue at its present size, but also to expand. The industry is desperate to make out that the problem is the need to decarbonise flights, not reduce their number. The sector has to keep growing – that is the universal business model. Cait said “I’ve heard all kinds of promises from the aviation sector about cutting emissions, and while it’s true that emissions are reducing on a per-passenger basis, overall emissions are not.” Every sector, including aviation, must cut its climate impact.
Click here to view full story…
Airbus boss warns of delay in decarbonising airline industry – “green” hydrogen and SAF not available in large amounts
Head of Airbus, Guillaume Faury, says there is a shortage of allegedly low carbon fuels, so-called “Sustainable Aviation Fuel” (SAF). He said this is slowing the uptake of SAF. He had concerns about the pace of investment in facilities to produce “green” hydrogen and SAF. “Green” hydrogen, produced from water using zero-carbon electricity, offers one possible solution, while SAF, made from plant or other wastes or using carbon from the air, can be used in existing gas turbine engines. The hope is that, although SAF burns to create CO2, there is less overall CO2 in the fuel lifecycle than using conventional jet kerosene. Airbus wants to fly zero-emissions hydrogen aircraft in commercial service by 2035 but Faury said this may be later, due to the lack of “green” hydrogen. With every other sector aiming to use genuinely low carbon, renewably generated electricity, is there enough to use on producing jet fuel, largely for discretionary leisure trips? Rolls Royce and EasyJet are also making efforts to test engines fuelled by hydrogen. So far it has been burned in a jet engine, on the ground, not on a plane in flight. SAF supplies are likely to remain relatively limited for years.