General News
Below are links to stories of general interest in relation to aviation and airports.
Taxing kerosene on flights, at the level paid by motorists, could raise £6.7 billion a year for the UK Treasury
Revenues generated from a UK aviation kerosene tax could accelerate the reduction in aviation CO2 emissions, a new study by Transport & Environment (T&E) found. They calculated possible revenues that could be raised by the Treasury if the UK government were to impose a duty on the fuel (in a similar fashion to how road fuel is taxed) uplifted to planes in the UK. Airlines currently pay no fuel duty at all. To make matters worse, in further ignorance of the polluter pays principle – long-haul flights are not included in the UK ETS (the carbon market for aviation), long haul carrier airlines do not pay a penny for any of the emissions they cause. In contrast, jet fuel taken on for domestic aviation has been taxed for many years in countries such as the US, Japan, India and Brazil. In 2019 a kerosene tax at the same level as motorists pay, airlines would have collectively had to pay £6.7 billion for their fuel. Taxing domestic flights, which represent 19% of all UK departing flights, but only 4% of total jet fuel used, could generate £0.26 billion. For flights departing to the EU (65% of flights and 30% of jet fuel), revenues calculated were £1.93 billion. For flights to the US, the Treasury could generate £1.6 billion.
Click here to view full story...
Airlines and airports call on UK Gov to ramp up financial support for SAF production
Airports and airlines have written to Mark Harper, the new transport secretary, calling for more state intervention to support the "fledgling green fuel industry." The aviation sector is placing most of its hopes, of being able to continue at its current size and to grow further, on so called "sustainable aviation fuels." (SAF). These fuels will have to be produced from wastes of various sorts, in order to have credible claims to be lower carbon than conventional jet fuel. (Both sorts of fuel produce about the same CO2 emissions and non-CO2 impacts when burned in a jet engine). The aviation sector wants government funding, to help develop SAF. It says "Britain will struggle to create an industry producing sustainable aviation fuel unless the government provides regular subsidies to manufacturers." The government has promised £165mn as seed capital to encourage manufacturers to open at least 5 plants producing SAF and hopes they will be started by 2025. It has also set a target under which 10% of aviation fuel must be SAF by 2030.They want the government to create “contracts for difference” (CFDs) to agree a set price for SAF, to give confidence to investors.
Click here to view full story...
Bristol Airport court case is test for Sunak’s green credentials, and test case for other airport expansion plans
The decision on whether Bristol Airport should be allowed to expand has faced a court challenge. Carla Denyer, the co-leader of the Green Party, has commented that this case has huge significance for the future not just of Bristol and the South West, but for the whole of the UK. Despite the expansion application being rejected by North Somerset council, in February of this year, the Government’s Planning Inspectorate overruled the public mandate and the views of local councillors, all the surrounding councils, the West of England Combined Authority, the local MPs and the vast majority of the local residents. The expansion of Bristol Airport would be catastrophic. The carbon emissions from the expansion alone will equate to an extra 1 million tonnes of CO2 per year. That’s double the annual carbon currently emitted by all the rest of Bristol’s transport. It is a nationally important test case for whether carbon emissions and the UK’s legally binding environmental targets can carry weight in planning decisions. Up to 20 other regional airports have plans to expand, and are waiting and watching this Statutory Appeal closely.
Click here to view full story...
Climate activists target private jet airports, asking that private jet travel is reduced
Protests by groups such as Extinction Rebellion and Scientist Rebellion, in the UK, have staged protests and two of the main airports that serve private jets. There were other protests in the US and in Europe, with several people arrested. Protests took place at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey and also at airports in North Carolina, California and Washington State. In Europe there were protests at Schiphol in the Netherlands, Milan, Stockholm and Trondheim. The carbon emissions per passenger kilometre by users of private jets are perhaps 5-14 times as great as those in premium class seats on conventional jets, and much more than standard class passengers in a modern, full plane. With the severity of climate change becoming ever more apparent, the unnecessarily high carbon emissions by those who choose to fly in private jets are unacceptable. These flights are not only taken by politicians, eg. attending COP27 in Sharm-el-Sheikh, but often by the very rich, celebrities etc. Governments need to clamp down on this unjustifiable burning of jet fuel.
Click here to view full story...
Luton Airport owner (part of Luton Council) delays DCO plans for expansion to 32mppa
Earlier this year, Luton Rising – a Luton Council subsidiary that owns the airport – consulted on revised expansion proposals that would eventually increase the airport’s annual passenger capacity from 18 million to 32 million. Luton Rising has now delayed the submission of its £1.5bn expansion plans. The necessary Development Consent Order (DCO) application for a second airport terminal was due to be submitted by the end of 2022. But Construction News has learned that the application has been pushed back to 2023. The plans consist of two phases, with the first expanding the existing terminal to 21.5 million ann ual passengers, and the second building a new terminal. This second phase is itself split into two parts, with the new terminal boosting capacity to 27M per year and further expansion later increasing it to 32M. It is thought that, if approved, construction would not begin until at least 2025. Consultation documents state that delivering the project would take up to 20 years, “during which there will be periods of construction activity and others with no activity”. A previous statutory consultation was held in 2019, but the airport struggled financially due to Covid, and forced it to borrow several hundred £million from Luton council.
Click here to view full story...
Greenpeace and XR climate activists storm Amsterdam Schiphol airport and block private jets
Dutch border police arrested hundreds of climate activists who stormed the private jet area of Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport and sat in front of the wheels of aircraft to prevent them from leaving. More than 100 protesters from Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion entered an area where private jets are kept, as part of a day of demonstrations in and around the airport organised by environmental groups to mark the start of the COP27 talks in Egypt. Greenpeace says Schiphol is the largest source of CO2 emissions in the Netherlands, emitting 12 billion kilograms annually. Around 200 activists were arrested, and there is video of many escaping on bicycles, while the police try to catch them on foot (one activist received a head injury). The airport says the usual greenwashing stuff about becoming an emissions-free airport by 2030 etc (conveniently ignoring the flights) and being net zero by 2050. Blah blah. The Dutch transport minister, Mark Harbers, told parliament last month that his office could not control growing private jet traffic, and the government was considering whether to include the issue in its climate policy. Private jets emit greatly more CO2 per person than even on commercial planes.
Click here to view full story...
New survey shows most employees expect top executives to set corporate flying reduction targets
In the past, the full-fare airlines especially got a lot of their income from business travellers, who paid more than those in coach class, and were less price sensitive than individual passengers. But with growing awareness of the global climate permacrisis, and also the changes to working practices due to the Covid pandemic, there has been a reduction in business travel. And it may be a permanent change. A new survey of staff at a large number of businesses in the US, the UK, France, Germany and Spain found that at least 60% thought there should be less business flying, and that companies should have the appropriate travel policies. Due to Covid, a high proportion of business meetings can be done online, using Zoom, Teams etc, and many staff prefer this. There has been realisation that staff are more productive - and happier - if they do not have to waste time taking flights, especially for internal company meetings. The old days of business flying being a mark of status, gaining respect and kudos, may be gone.
Click here to view full story...
Government £1.5 million campaign (taxpayer money) to boost aviation recruitment
The UK government has a new recruitment campaign that it is calling “Generation Aviation”, aimed at encouraging people to consider a career in the UK’s aviation sector. It claims this “forms part of government strategy to create a more sustainable, open and diverse aviation sector.” People in the scheme will be able to “kick-start a […]
Click here to view full story...
Pressure for aviation to have to include its non-CO2 climate impacts of its emissions
The lack of scientific clarity on the impact of its non-CO2 effects is a risk for commercial aviation, as it starts to take steps to address the problem of its carbon emissions and their climate impact. There is an aspirational target by the ICAO for the commercial air travel sector to reach "net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050". The exact meaning of net-zero is never clear, or how genuinely the emissions will be removed. But that ignores the other problem aviation has, which is the non-CO2 impacts of its emissions at high altitude. These are various gases, including nitrogen oxides (NOx) and also contrails. Studies indicate that these may double, or even triple, the climate warming impact of the plane's CO2 alone. The science is complicated, and the impacts are different at different times of day, in different weather conditions, in different places, and different durations of effects. However, it is convenient for the industry to continue hiding behind claims that the science is uncertain, as the reality would be a real handicap for their future plans. Tim Johnson, of the Aviation Environment Federation (AEF) said though ICAO has refused to address non-CO2 impacts yet, this will become imperative between now and 2050 (at the very latest).
Click here to view full story...
“Possible” campaign legally challenging government’s “Jet Zero” strategy
The government has no proper aviation policy, with just unrealistic aspirations in its "Jet Zero Strategy" for the sector to be able to reduce its carbon emissions (and other climate impacts) using technologies that are either unproven or cannot be scaled up to the necessary extent. It will not try to limit demand for air travel. Now the climate campaign, Possible, has lodged a judicial review claim against the government because their “Jet Zero” strategy would fail to reduce aviation’s climate impacts in line with the UK’s emissions commitments and would encourage a huge increase in flights. The Climate Change Committee, in their most recent 2022 progress report to Parliament, stated that the government needs to “implement a policy to manage aviation demand as soon as possible”. Reducing the number of flights and passengers is the only reliable way to cut the climate impact of UK aviation. The grounds of Possible's legal claim include the strategy's failure to ensure that it would enable the UK’s carbon budgets to be met and, and this risks the UK failing to achieve net zero. Also that the government did not take the advice of the Climate Change Committee, and it did not consult on demand management. The campaign, GALBA, is also challenging the government over the strategy.