The aviation industry is facing unprecedented pressure from environmental protection duties that may exceed 2.4 billion euros in taxes charged by the EU for carbon dioxide emissions. According to the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), created by the EU in 2005, all airline companies that operate routes to or from the EU will face a carbon tax. The EU's plan stipulates that by 2012, all airline companies which operate from or have a stopover at any European airport will have to reduce their carbon emissions to 97 per cent of their average emission levels between 2004 and 2006. Another 2 percentage-point reduction will be required by the year 2013. The carbon tax is obtained by multiplying the emission volume during flight and the per unit price of carbon. The current carbon price is 14.4 euros per unit. Some airlines opposed the planned action and considered it against the principle of "common but differentiated responsibility" claimed by the UN Convention on Climate Change. "It is the biggest environmental charge in history. It is a sort of trade protectionism where Europe imposes its own laws to protect European airlines," commented engineer Mahmoud Fathi, EgyptAir equipment safety manager. "The European countries have modernised their fleets with new planes that technically reduce carbon emissions. But the aviation industry in other countries have not done this, and there will be a big cost for them," he added, addressing a seminar on emission trade organised by the national carrier last week. "It is unfair to pay the EU for all the carbon emissions during a flight rather than just pay the part released after entering the EU airspace." A name list released by the EU in August mentioned over 2,000 airline companies, including 18 Egyptian airlines. The name list also specified EU member states that administer different airline companies. The administrators for Egyptian airlines include France (five airlines), Belgium (three), Greece (three), Germany (one), Italy (two), Poland (two), and the UK (two). SITA, the air transport IT specialist, announced that it has developed and tested a scaleable global solution to comply with Emissions Trading Schemes (ETS) for an airline industry burdened with such demands.Recently, the Arab Air Carriers Organisation (AACO) became the first organisation to recommend adoption of the new SITA Aircraft Emissions Manager solution to its members. "The organisation agreed on behalf of 11 AACO member airlines for SITA to supply advisory services to help manage the EU ETS challenge they face," explained AACO chairman, Hussein Massoud. "The SITA solution will allow our member airlines to provide 100 per cent accurate data on our carbon emissions to the EU so we get a fair deal under the ETS from 2012 onwards," he added. According to Massoud, the agreement was signed on behalf of Air Cairo, Egypt Air Group (which includes Egypt Air, Egypt Air Express, and Egypt Air Cargo), Jordan Aviation, Kuwait Airways, Libyan Airlines, Middle East Airlines, Oman Air, Royal Jordanian, Saudi Arabian Airlines, Syrian Arab Airlines and Yemen Airways.
