In the beginning of 2009, the European Directive for the inclusion of international and national air transport into the European CO2 Emission Trading Scheme (EU-ETS) has come into effect. From 2012 onwards, all airlines are obliged to hold and surrender emission allowances for all flights departing from or landing at European airports.
These emission allowances are partly granted free of charge, but also partly auctioned off to the highest bidder. According to our calculations, the ticket price increase per passenger and flight segment will amount to approx. 5 Euro on short haul and up to approx. 50 Euro on long haul flights, which is considered to be relatively moderate. However, competition distortions are likely to occur among the airlines due to different network structures and growth rates. The cost of purchasing additional allowances beyond the free allocation for a network airline such as Lufthansa is likely to be in the order of 200-300 million Euros per year.
Inclusion of Air Transport into the European CO2 Emission Trading (Download PDF [german])