emissions trading scheme will end. The directive
(Dir 2008/101/EC) to include aviation into the EU
Emissions Trading Scheme (EU-ETS) was
published on January 13, 2009 in the EU’s Official Journal. It is valid for all flights to, from, and
within the EU and starts on January 1, 2012. For
2012, an EU-wide cap on aviation emissions is set
at 97% of the average annual emissions for the
years 2004–2006. It will be lowered to 95% in
2013. All airlines will have to buy 15% of their
allowance under the said cap through an auction.
More allowances in order to cover growth of an
airline have to be purchased. The revenues from
selling, if emissions are below the cap, must not
be put into the industry or climate protection measures. The inclusion of aviation into EU-ETS will
be reviewed in 2014. There are exemptions for
very small airlines, research, military, and rescue
flights. The directive has been included into the
one for EU-ETS (Dir 2003/87/EC).
An Airline Emission Index
As always in any economic sector there are large
differences in behavior, here emissions, between
different agents. In order to bring transparency
into the aviation sector of global transport the
German nongovernmental, nonprofit organization
atmosfair has issued for the first time in spring of
2011 a global airline index, comparing nearly all
airlines with respect to their environmental standards in the field of climatically relevant emissions. The atmosfair airline index (AAI) is a
ranking of most airlines with respect to such climatically relevant emissions with the following
characteristics [1]:
1. Inclusion of the 130 largest airlines in the
world, arranged according to passenger kilometers as well as revenue, disregarding mere
cargo flight companies.
2. Data from 2009 are used for the AAI 2011.
3. Airlines are subdivided into the following classes: net carrier, low cost carrier, charter, and
regional carrier.
4. Solely climatically relevant emissions of a carrier are taken into account, disregarding noise
pollution and further sustainability measures.
5. Restriction to carbon dioxide emissions, because
other emissions causing for instance contrails are
very similar for all airlines. There is only one
exception: Nitrogen oxides (NOx) are included
via an engine-related emission factor (needed to
assess the radiative forcing by ozone and methane, both influenced due to chemical reactions of
these oxides in the atmosphere, leading to higher
ozone and lower methane concentrations).
6. Different business plans like those for net carriers
and low cost carriers are not valued, despite the
air traffic stimulation caused by the low cost
carriers through subsidies often given to them
by national governments or city councils.
7. All airlines are categorized into seven efficiency classes from A to G, in analogy to the
European Union efficiency classes.
The AAI bases on a new atmosfair methodology, built upon the CO 2 emission calculations of
ICAO. Its main data sources are the generally
available data sets: ICAO TFS (Traffic Flight by
Stage), IATA WATS, OAG, Piano-x, JP-Airline
Fleet. This combination leads to 103 types of
aircraft and 287 engines, constituting 87% of the
global commercial air traffic with respect to number of flights. The parameters used are: aircraft
type, engine, winglets, seating arrangement, cargo
addition, and passenger number.
The comparison of airlines follows the following procedure:
1. Calculation of the CO 2 emission per kilometer
for a flight between a city pair, taking into
account the above parameters.
2. The CO 2 emission from step 1 for a city pair is
compared with the best case (direct flight in
best heights with least fuel consumption) and
the worst case with three times higher emissions (chosen to fully embrace all airlines).
3. The airline reaching the best case for a city pair
gets 100 points (it never happened), the one
with higher emissions for the same city pair
gets less points according to its reduced performance, reaching zero points if emitting three
times as much.
4. All city pairs of an airline are combined by
summing over all points reached for all pairs
and dividing by the number of city pairs.
Aviation and Atmosphere
341
(Dir 2008/101/EC) to include aviation into the EU
Emissions Trading Scheme (EU-ETS) was
published on January 13, 2009 in the EU’s Official Journal. It is valid for all flights to, from, and
within the EU and starts on January 1, 2012. For
2012, an EU-wide cap on aviation emissions is set
at 97% of the average annual emissions for the
years 2004–2006. It will be lowered to 95% in
2013. All airlines will have to buy 15% of their
allowance under the said cap through an auction.
More allowances in order to cover growth of an
airline have to be purchased. The revenues from
selling, if emissions are below the cap, must not
be put into the industry or climate protection measures. The inclusion of aviation into EU-ETS will
be reviewed in 2014. There are exemptions for
very small airlines, research, military, and rescue
flights. The directive has been included into the
one for EU-ETS (Dir 2003/87/EC).
An Airline Emission Index
As always in any economic sector there are large
differences in behavior, here emissions, between
different agents. In order to bring transparency
into the aviation sector of global transport the
German nongovernmental, nonprofit organization
atmosfair has issued for the first time in spring of
2011 a global airline index, comparing nearly all
airlines with respect to their environmental standards in the field of climatically relevant emissions. The atmosfair airline index (AAI) is a
ranking of most airlines with respect to such climatically relevant emissions with the following
characteristics [1]:
1. Inclusion of the 130 largest airlines in the
world, arranged according to passenger kilometers as well as revenue, disregarding mere
cargo flight companies.
2. Data from 2009 are used for the AAI 2011.
3. Airlines are subdivided into the following classes: net carrier, low cost carrier, charter, and
regional carrier.
4. Solely climatically relevant emissions of a carrier are taken into account, disregarding noise
pollution and further sustainability measures.
5. Restriction to carbon dioxide emissions, because
other emissions causing for instance contrails are
very similar for all airlines. There is only one
exception: Nitrogen oxides (NOx) are included
via an engine-related emission factor (needed to
assess the radiative forcing by ozone and methane, both influenced due to chemical reactions of
these oxides in the atmosphere, leading to higher
ozone and lower methane concentrations).
6. Different business plans like those for net carriers
and low cost carriers are not valued, despite the
air traffic stimulation caused by the low cost
carriers through subsidies often given to them
by national governments or city councils.
7. All airlines are categorized into seven efficiency classes from A to G, in analogy to the
European Union efficiency classes.
The AAI bases on a new atmosfair methodology, built upon the CO 2 emission calculations of
ICAO. Its main data sources are the generally
available data sets: ICAO TFS (Traffic Flight by
Stage), IATA WATS, OAG, Piano-x, JP-Airline
Fleet. This combination leads to 103 types of
aircraft and 287 engines, constituting 87% of the
global commercial air traffic with respect to number of flights. The parameters used are: aircraft
type, engine, winglets, seating arrangement, cargo
addition, and passenger number.
The comparison of airlines follows the following procedure:
1. Calculation of the CO 2 emission per kilometer
for a flight between a city pair, taking into
account the above parameters.
2. The CO 2 emission from step 1 for a city pair is
compared with the best case (direct flight in
best heights with least fuel consumption) and
the worst case with three times higher emissions (chosen to fully embrace all airlines).
3. The airline reaching the best case for a city pair
gets 100 points (it never happened), the one
with higher emissions for the same city pair
gets less points according to its reduced performance, reaching zero points if emitting three
times as much.
4. All city pairs of an airline are combined by
summing over all points reached for all pairs
and dividing by the number of city pairs.
Aviation and Atmosphere
341