ALA recalls that the Single European Sky would save 10% of the CO ₂ emissions of each flight

The president of the Association of Airlines (ALA), Javier Gándara, recalled on Monday that the implementation of the Single European Sky, an issue that has been refuted for 20 years and that is one of the great claims of the industry, would save 10% of carbon dioxide emissions (CO₂) of each flight.

This has been said by Gándara in the first conference of the cycle ‘Air transport and climate change: myths and realities’, of the Spanish Aeronautical Society (SAE), where he stressed that, taking into account that as a result of the fragmentation of European airspace each flight is 49 kilometers longer on average than the direct route, ending these inefficiencies could save about ten million tons of CO₂ additional ones per year.

The president of the association recalled that aviation represents 2.5% of CO emissions₂ in the world and that, faced with this, the sector is adopting “very demanding” commitments and investing “in more modern fleets and technological solutions”, in addition to offsetting its emissions and exploring the potential of “electric aircraft and biofuels to reduce the carbon footprint”.

As a result, _CO2 emissions per passenger transported have been reduced by more than 50% in the last 30 years, according to IATA data.

ALA has stated that there are market-based measures that favor the reduction of _CO2 emissions, as is the case of the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), with which aviation offsets its emissions on its intra-European flights and which, by buying and selling ’emission permits’, each airline is responsible for operating within the established framework.

Gándara has also alluded to the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Plan for International Aviation (Corsia, for its acronym in English) as another of the commitments that airlines also support and that, at the international level, aims to mitigate some 2,500 million tons of CO₂ between 2021 and 2035.

GLOBAL MEASURES AT EUROPEAN LEVEL

In the sector’s commitment in the medium and long term, the development of sustainable fuels and the electrification of aviation with hybrid and electric aircraft are other priorities of the airlines. In that sense, for Gándara, airlines are taking “great steps” to reduce their environmental impact.

In this sense, President ALA has stressed the need for the support of the Administration throughout the process and added that “the measures adopted by the Government in the field of sustainability must be assumed by the air sector, they must encourage and facilitate that transition, and do it progressively”.

Finally, Gándara has affirmed that “the solution adopted to reduce CO emissions₂ should encompass all actors involved in the aviation sector, i.e. manufacturers, providers of air navigation services at national and European level or airports.” Any measure adopted must be global and, at least, at European level,” he concluded.

Source: The Vanguard