Flying with Lufthansa, the flag carrier of Germany, across Europe will soon become slightly more expensive.
The airline group, which includes Eurowings, Swiss, Austrian and Brussels Airlines, announced on June 25 its decision to add an “environmental cost surcharge” of up to £60 (€72) to its fares to make up for new rules on reducing emissions, some of which have been enforced by Brussels.
The surcharge will depend on the type of ticket and will be applied on all flights departing from European Union countries, Britain, Norway and Switzerland, Lufthansa said.
Some of the increases will come into effect on tickets issued as early as June 26 for departures starting from January 1 next year.
All airlines in the Lufthansa group will apply the surcharge, with the exception of Eurowings tickets sold directly by the company.
Speaking about the surcharge, the German carrier said in a statement: “The airline group will not be able to bear the successively increasing additional costs resulting from regulatory requirements in the coming years on its own.”
Mentioning some of these environmental requirements leading to the surcharge, the statement also read: “These include the statutory blending quota of initially two percent for Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) for departures from European Union (EU) countries from January 1, 2025.
“Adjustments to the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) as well as other regulatory environmental costs such as the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA).”
The latter is a carbon offset and carbon reduction scheme developed not by the EU but by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
Global aviation is deemed responsible for about 2 percent of the world’s CO2 emissions. In the European Union alone in 2017, aviation accounted for 3.8 percent of the total emissions.
The European Commission’s web page dedicated to reducing aviation emissions claims that, “if global aviation were a country, it would rank in the top 10 emitters”.
Over the years, Brussels has launched a series of regulations trying to reduce emissions, such as the EU Emissions Trading System and the steady introduction of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) made from bio-based materials.
When it comes to the latter, EU rules are asking fuel suppliers to ensure 2 percent of fuel at EU airports will be SAF by 2025 – a percentage to rise to 6 percent in 2030 and a whopping 70 percent in 2050.