EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme, which now affects almost 500 passenger airlines, will have a long-term impact on ticket prices, says Estonian Air CEO Tero Taskila.
"Introduction of the scheme will bring new costs” he added.
EU has estimated that airlines would need to increase ticket prices 6-9 Euros per flight segment in order to recover the additional costs. This would mean that return ticket prices would increase 12-18 euros in Europe when the ETS scheme comes into force.
“Estonian Air is committing itself to provide carbon neutral growth by 2020. This means, that the airline will keep on investing in flight equipment, processes and people to reduce the emissions. The other big element in helping reducing the emissions is the aviation infrastructure. Air Navigation, Airport Operations etc. will have to become more efficient in future for us to offer lower emissions per flight.
We are also looking at flying using alternative fuel, but it is pity that ETS scheme does not provide any benefits for flying with less carbon intensive fuel. This puts the airlines in difficult position, because the opportunity to invest ETS money to alternative fuel sources would have made a real direct impact to environment, but now we are just paying ETS taxes, without seeing how it is used to enhance the environmental impacts,” said Taskila.
Toomas Hõbemägi
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