Air traffic Global air traffic clearly misses climate targets
According to a study, global air traffic has clearly missed its climate targets. Airlines have only succeeded to a moderate extent in reducing kerosene consumption and thus reducing CO2 emissions and other environmental damage.
This is the result of an airline ranking presented by the environmental organization "Atmosfair" on Thursday at the climate conference in Baku. "The climate turnaround in air travel is a long time coming," said Atmosfair Managing Director Dietrich Brockhagen. "Our figures show that the sector is simply too slow when it comes to climate protection."
However, the absolute CO2 emissions of passenger air traffic are still around 10 percent lower than in 2019, mainly due to the lower volume of flights. According to the calculations, international passenger airlines only improved their CO2 efficiency by just under 6 percent last year compared to the pre-corona year 2019, which corresponds to an annual increase of only 1.4 percent.
However, with air traffic continuing to grow, an improvement of 4.0 percent is necessary every year in order to achieve the climate targets agreed in Paris, explained Atmosfair. Even the climate targets of the civil aviation organization ICAO of 2.0 percent per year, which it considers insufficient, have not been met.
Airlines are not making progress with fleet modernization
Among other things, the airlines have made no progress with fleet modernization, although modern engines can reduce kerosene consumption by up to 30 percent. This is due to delivery problems at the two dominant manufacturers Boeing and Airbus.
Airlines with comparatively old fleets are therefore falling behind in the ranking, such as the core company of the Lufthansa Group, which slipped from 66th place in 2019 to 97th. Condor fell from 9th to 36th place and Tuifly, the best German airline, from 4th to 14th place.
Tuifly Netherlands and the airline Starlux from Taiwan, which was only founded in 2018, achieved the most favorable efficiency values. Both operate ultra-modern and well-utilized jets.
Sustainable fuel from chip fat and electricity
In a reaction, the German industry association BDL cites the number of 427 more efficient aircraft that German airlines have ordered. The latest generation uses 2.1 to 2.5 liters of kerosene per passenger and 100 kilometers. The current average consumption of German airlines is 3.44 liters.
What all efforts have in common is the fact that modern jets can still only be lifted into the air and cover long distances with powerful combustion engines. Larger aircraft with sufficiently powerful battery or fuel cell drives will not be available for years to come.
Sustainably produced kerosene (SAF), which is currently mainly produced from used cooking fats, has only played a minor role to date. The industry sees SAF as a decisive lever for decarbonizing air traffic. An expansion to other organic raw materials is foreseeable. From next year, the EU will require SAF blends in increasing quotas.
According to Atmosfair, no airline fueled more than 1 percent of its requirements with SAF in 2023. The airline association IATA expects global SAF production to triple this year. But even these 1.5 million tons would only be enough to cover slightly more than 0.5 percent of global aviation demand.
Synthetic kerosene, which can be produced using large amounts of electricity, is also technically possible. However, there are no industrial-scale plants for this yet.
Lufthansa performs better in other rankings
The Lufthansa Group refers to its ambitious sustainability goals, its extensive reporting on the topic and positive assessments from various ESG rating agencies. In its most recent sustainability report to date, the Group claims to have improved its efficiency by 2.7 percent between 2019 and 2023.
Lufthansa cites 253 aircraft orders and 161 options at the end of 2023. Despite a significant increase in kerosene consumption of 16 percent from 2022 to 2023, the amount of SAF added voluntarily has remained almost the same.
SDA
