Airline Specific Information

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In 2012 aviation was included in the EU ETS. Surrendering allowances (EUAs) annually is something all airlines have to do along with other industry included in the scheme. The idea is that by limiting the number of allowances the industries that can make CO2 cuts easily will do so and sell any excess EUAs to industries that cannot make cuts as easily. Carbon prices represented around 3% of operation costs for intra EEA flights in 2018 but jumped to around 12-20% in 2020 due to the increase in carbon costs (€34 per ton of CO2 at the end of 2020 vs €5 per ton in 2018). Prices spiked after the EU signalled changes to the ETS in 2021 and EU ETS prices have subsequently hovered around €60-€70 per tonne. See the latest EUA prices here. UK ETS prices initially mirrored the EU but have subsequently dropped to around £35 per tonne (see ICE). 

Did you know you can check the carbon emissions of each airline within the European Economic Area? 

One of the pillars of the EU ETS is transparency. Click the picture to access the EU transaction log. You can search for any airlines (and installations) which fly within Europe and find out what their total annual emissions were within the EEA. It should be noted many airlines have significant emissions not included in the EU ETS and for details on total emissions company reports should be checked (most airlines are situated in countries which require them to disclose CO2 emissions).

UK ETS data can be found here.

Using this and airlines publicly reported data we can show Europe’s 5 biggest airlines (by passenger numbers) total global emissions and efficiency (Image 1 below).

By cross-referencing airlines self-published data against the UK and EU emission databases we can also show what proportion of CO2emissions these airlines paid for (Image 2 below).

This allows comparison of airline profits and profit per tonne of CO2 emitted (Image 3 below).