BA faces €50m bill for carbon emissions

British Airways faces a bill of nearly €50m, the highest of any airline, when carriers around the world are brought into the European Union’s carbon emissions trading scheme next year, a new study estimates.

But BA and other large European carriers will face a relatively smaller burden than their rivals in the US and China, because they should get an average of 81 per cent of the carbon allowances needed under the scheme for free. The Chinese and American carriers will only get an average of up to 64 per cent, says the report by Thomson Reuters Point Carbon, the energy research firm.

The airline industry’s total bill is expected to be €1.1bn ($1.5bn) at today’s carbon prices, the study says. The whole sector may only make a $4bn profit this year, the International Air Transport Association has forecast.

“Compared to airlines’ annual fuel bills, these additional costs are minor, but compared to profits they are considerable,” said Andreas Arvanitakis, Thomson Reuters Point Carbon associate director. “The question is how much of the cost can be passed to passengers and cargo clients.”

The findings come amid a fierce row over the EU’s move to make any airline flying into and within the bloc pay for pollution.

US airlines have taken legal action against what they say is an “astonishing” step, and Chinese complaints have prompted warnings of a trade war from European aircraft-maker Airbus.

Airlines have been exempt from Europe’s six-year-old cap and trade scheme, the world’s largest, which forces big polluters to pay for their carbon emissions above certain limits.

Carriers will now have to surrender allowances, each equal to one tonne of carbon dioxide, to cover their annual emissions. A portion will be allocated for free but heavy polluters will have to buy more allowances, now trading for about €12 each.

The exact number of free allowances each airline will get will not be known until official figures are published this month. But Point Carbon’s calculations, based on the latest public data, offer an early picture of how airlines’ competitive positions may be affected.

The €50m bill BA faces amounts to €1.66 per passenger, much more than the €0.14 expected for Delta, its US rival on the lucrative London-New York route, says Peter Hind of the RDC Aviation consultancy, whose data are used in the Point Carbon study.

BA said: “Any estimates of the shortfall in our carbon allowances are just that – an estimate. Our own analyses of the costs of the EU ETS to our business are commercially confidential and we would not speculate as to the costs to other airlines.”

Italy’s Alitalia faced a bigger bill than Air France, because “its fleet is not as efficient as Air France’s and their planes are not as full, either of passengers or freight”, Mr Hind said.

Overall, Europe’s big international airlines should get an average of 81 per cent of the allowances they will need for free, slightly more than budget rivals, Ryanair and Easyjet.

But the top five Chinese airlines, including Air China and Taiwan flag carrier China Airlines, will get an average of 63 per cent, while the bigger US airlines will get an average of 64 per cent.

This article is subject to a correction and has been amended.