Aviation emissions in the context of climate
change: a consumption-production approach
Final policy report
Alice Bows
Sarah Mander
Sally Randles
Kevin Anderson
June 2010
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Aviation emissions in the context of climate
change: a consumption-production approach
Final policy report
Dr Alice Bows, Dr Sarah Mander, Dr Sally Randles and Dr Kevin Anderson
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
MACE/MBS
University of Manchester
Manchester M60 1QD
Email: alice.bows@manchester.ac.uk
June 2010
www.tyndall.ac.uk
Contents
A. TECHNICAL SUMMARY ..................................................................................................................1
A.1. CLIMATE CHANGE CONTEXT .........................................................................................................1
A.2. INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVES ............................................................................................................3
A.3. CONSUMER PERSPECTIVES ..........................................................................................................5
A.4. INDUSTRY WORKSHOP AND SCENARIOS .........................................................................................6
A.5. NEXT STEPS ................................................................................................................................9
1. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................10
2. THE CLIMATE AND AVIATION DEBATE......................................................................................11
2.1. POLICY CONFLICTS ....................................................................................................................12
2.2. REDUCING EMISSIONS ACROSS AN AGGREGATE OF ALL SECTORS .................................................12
2.3. BARRIERS TO EMISSION REDUCTIONS ACROSS THE AVIATION SECTOR ...........................................12
3. PROJECT OUTLINE .......................................................................................................................14
3.1. RESEARCH DESIGN AND PROCESS ..............................................................................................15
3.2. CONSUMERS INTERVIEWS ..........................................................................................................16
3.3. INDUSTRY INTERVIEWS ..............................................................................................................16
4. COMPLEXITY & THE AVIATION CONSUMPTION-PRODUCTION SYSTEM ..............................18
4.1. AIRLINES...................................................................................................................................19
4.2. AIRPORTS .................................................................................................................................21
4.3. AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL ..............................................................................................................24
4.4. MANUFACTURERS .....................................................................................................................25
4.5. CONSUMERS .............................................................................................................................28
4.6. POLICY IMPLICATIONS ................................................................................................................32
6. AVIATION WORKSHOP .................................................................................................................34
6.1. MOTIVATION FOR STAKEHOLDER ATTENDANCE ............................................................................34
6.2. AVIATION WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ...................................................................35
6.3. SCENARIOS ...............................................................................................................................37
6.4. BRAINSTORMING A ‘SUCCESSFUL AVIATION INDUSTRY’ .................................................................39
ND
6.5. EMISSION LEAKAGE – I HAND MARKET ......................................................................................40
6.6. CONSUMER INTERVIEW PRESENTATION .......................................................................................41
6.7. INDUSTRY INTERVIEW PRESENTATION .........................................................................................42
6.8. WORKSHOP SUMMARY ...............................................................................................................43
7. SCENARIOS ...................................................................................................................................44
7.1. SCENARIO DEVELOPMENT ..........................................................................................................45
7.2. SCENARIO DESCRIPTIONS ..........................................................................................................46
8. POLICY ANALYSIS: DISCUSSION................................................................................................58
8.1 THE SPECIAL CASE OF AVIATION ........................................................................................................58
8.2 AVIATION AND THE EU ETS ..............................................................................................................62
8.3 DEMAND MANAGEMENT ....................................................................................................................64
8.4 TECHNOLOGY – OPTIMISM OR PESSIMISM?.........................................................................................68
9. CONCLUSIONS ..............................................................................................................................70
10. REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................71
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A. Technical Summary
This report presents the results of a research project investigating consumption-
production systems within the aviation industry, carried out by the Tyndall Centre
Manchester and Manchester Business School. The aim of the study was to understand
better the drivers of growth within this sector and thereby highlight opportunities for
policymakers to address the pressing issue of growth in emissions from aviation in the
context of climate change mitigation. The project engaged with aviation industry
representatives in addition to a number of ‘frequent flyer’ consumers. Through in-depth
interviews and a one-day aviation industry scenario workshop, the research team have
probed topics covering, for example: the practice of flying; the inclusion of aviation
within the EU Emissions Trading Scheme; manufacturing opportunities and
constraints; interdependencies between airports, airlines, air traffic control,
manufacturers and consumers; system complexity; unexpected consequences of
regulation; regional airport expansion.
The final element of the analysis considered the views of policymakers and explored
the aviation system and climate change from a policymaker’s perspective. The aim
was to better understand policymaking within this area and discuss with policymakers
the new ideas generated through this work on how to tackle the issue of growing
aviation emissions.
A.1. Climate change context
Within the UK and the EU there is broad political agreement that we should make our
fair contribution to “avoiding dangerous climate change…” In the absence of any
explicit global consensus on an appropriate metric for delineating dangerous from
acceptable climate change, European leaders have recently reiterated their
commitment to “limiting average global temperature increases to no more than 2°C
above pre-industrial levels”1. Choosing to aim for a global temperature threshold allows
governments at all levels to draw policy conclusions on the action required through the
link between temperatures, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, and
hence cumulative emission budgets.
1
The 2007 Conference of the Parties meeting in Bali to discuss global climate change agreements produced a
mandate acknowledging the need for deep cuts in emissions, but there remains no agreed global consensus on the
scale of such cuts at present.
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Consumption-production systems in aviation
As the most important
greenhouse gas – CO2 –
remains in the atmosphere for
100 years, CO2 accumulates
the longer fossil fuels continue
to be combusted. Therefore,
the earlier emissions start to
reduce, the less demanding
the emission reduction
pathway in the future.
Unfortunately, the rate at
which the budget is currently
being spent is severely limiting
future options. Figure A1
illustrates this point in relation
Figure A1: Cumulative carbon budget for the EU 25 to the EU.
If the EU is to remain within budget and avoid extremely demanding emission
reduction rates, emissions must stabilise and begin to decline across the aggregate of
all sectors, within the next 5 years.
Emissions generated by flying are highly
significant elements of an individual’s BOX 1 Barriers specific or exacerbated
by the aviation system appear, from this
carbon footprint. According to a recent analysis, to include:
article in New Scientist2, “frequent flyers
have carbon footprints tens of times - The industry is highly safety conscious
and hence risk-adverse
bigger than the rest of us.” Rapid growth
in flying renders aviation a clear example - Technological & sustainability constraints
on widespread use of low-carbon fuels
of an industry likely to find it extremely
challenging to make emission reductions - Slow fleet turnover
in the coming four decades. It is therefore - High capital cost of infrastructure
likely that the significant emission - High growth compared with other sectors
reductions required across the aggregate - Potentially very large emerging markets
of all sectors will be being made primarily - Relatively mature technology in terms of
by non-aviation sectors. If the aviation current airframe & engine design
sector does reduce emissions, but only - International nature of the technology
marginally, then emission reductions in and management systems
other sectors will need to be somewhat
higher than currently envisaged. If, on the other hand, the aviation sector’s emissions
continue to grow, considerably more pressure will be put on other sectors to reduce
their emissions. This project explores the aviation system with this issue in mind. The
key findings of the study to date are summarised in sections A.2. to A.5.
2
November 17th 2007 issue, article by Fred Pearce
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A.2. Industry perspectives
Aviation industry interviewees represented manufacturers, airlines, airports and air
traffic control. At
present, the industry is Box 2 The fundamental relationship of commercial
caught up with two very aviation with societies has changed over the recent years
significant problems and is changing still, particularly in relation to the growth
of the low-cost or ‘volume’ airline model. Some of the
facing contemporary
shifts are:
society:
- Global warming Darling Villain
- Global security Glamorous Ubiquitous
Chandeliers Sheds
These problems appear Comfort Discomfort
to be compounding Exclusive Inclusive
one-another, a result of Special Ordinary
which is the global Luxury Basic
aviation system is in Iconic national flag Regional gateways
turbulent times and Inefficient Efficient
experiencing ‘multiple National legacies Multiple models
shocks’. The industry’s resilience is being tested, with the possibility of a modified
aviation system ultimately emerging.
Airlines
Airlines have developed differentiated business models, for example low-cost or
‘volume’ vs tradition national ‘legacy’ vs charter models. Further hybrid models are
emerging that combine features of these, for example Virgin Atlantic with its long-haul
transatlantic lower-cost flights. Stemming from the different models, airlines have
asymmetric power over other elements in the system, e.g. ‘volume’ or low-cost models
have exiting power over regional airports and buying power over manufacturers.
Airlines, particularly of the low-cost breed, are increasingly utilising secondary sales for
revenue streams and profits (for example, in-flight sales and car parking). In contrast,
traditional or ‘legacy’ airlines are moving towards larger aircraft to manage capacity
constraints at airports.
In response to climate change, the ‘volume’ carrier stakeholders argue they have the
newest, most efficient fleet, with the lowest emissions per passenger-km. All
respondents were in favour of the EU ETS but against the air passenger duty in the UK
as it stood at the time. The stakeholders generally favoured airport expansion.
Policy insight: as the environmental impact of the range of business models is
contested by the stakeholders, an independent assessment of the emissions
implications of different business models is recommended.
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Consumption-production systems in aviation
Airports
Airports find it difficult to make money, with some operating at a loss for many years.
The larger airports are facing capacity constraints, with slots proving extremely
valuable to airlines. Growth is favoured through improving capacity, particularly at
regional airports, but also through infrastructure expansion at the major hub airports.
Non-financial arrangements are sometimes made to encourage new routes and
thereby generate new flights and passengers. Master plans are setting the context for
this expansion. There are strong links between the regional airports and local
economic development. This is also tied into the ‘volume’ airline models, perceived to
bring in net revenue to the region, and supporting the mobility of ‘knowledge workers’.
Airports are responding to climate change through addressing airport energy
consumption, ground-based transport emissions, as well as reducing ground-side
aircraft fuel consumption, e.g. through lower-carbon taxiing. Respondents were in
favour of using the EU ETS to address aviation’s contribution to climate change.
Policy insight: Growth in regional airports and expansion of existing airports results in
a ‘ratchet’ on the growth in aviation emissions. Plans for further growth require
revisiting.
Air traffic control
Much is being done within the air traffic control sector to improve operational efficiency,
however their primary objective remains public safety. Revenue for air traffic control is
generated through airlines and airports, and they have a responsibility to airspace
users to provide ‘capacity to meet predicted growth’.
This stakeholder in the system takes climate change very seriously and welcomes
dialogue on what can be done. In particular, Air Traffic Control managers focus on
technology improvements and operational rationalisation.
Policy insight: Current initiatives in terms of management, operations (both ground
and air) and technological development to reduce fuel-burn and emissions should be
supported and further accelerated.
Manufacturers
Manufacturers find themselves locked into current technology due to the very long
lifetimes of the aircraft they produce. The business is currently an oligopoly, with two
key players in relation to airframes keeping a close eye on each other’s developments.
There is symbolic relevance of a strong aerospace/aviation industry within the UK, with
a history of government support to maintain dominant and global significance. Global
bottle-necks in the supply of the new raw materials may emerge in the coming
decades due to the rapid growth in carbon composite materials required to produce the
latest/lightest most fuel efficient aircraft.
In addressing climate change, some airlines are pushing the manufacturers hard to
produce more efficient aircraft. Alliances are also forming between airlines and
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manufacturers to trial alternative low-carbon aviation fuels. Manufacturers were in
favour of including aviation within the EU ETS.
Policy insight: Given this stakeholder has demonstrated it can respond to both higher
fuel prices and climate change policies, further steering and incentivising of
manufacturers towards greater fuel efficiency and lower carbon intensity objectives is
recommended.
A.3. Consumer perspectives
The consumer interviews focussed on:
- The changing social norms and standards of practice that involve flying
- How frequent flyers deal with and talk about the environmental implications of
flying
- The implications and recommendations for policy instruments to address the
climate change issue
The interviews drew out a number of interesting qualitative research insights for
policymakers. These are summarised below:
Flying is not a practice in itself, but instead flying is constituted by the practices to
which it contributes – i.e. people don’t fly for flying’s sake, but to do something else.
However, flying has apparently raised the ‘standard’ of the practices – for example,
celebrating a retirement abroad. Changing practices of celebrating, holidaying and
visiting friends and family abroad, represents an upward ratchet on the number of
flights taken per year.
Policy insight: This trend in changing practices is likely to be hard to break or reverse,
particularly through voluntary means.
High growth is continuing within this industry, compounded by a variety of interacting
aspects. For example, easy internet booking and online check-in both facilitate swift
purchasing and delivery of the service. The low-price flights enables individuals to take
more flights than previously, with little evidence emerging of price sensitivity given that,
as one interviewee put it, “ticket costs are absurdly low”. The regionalisation of aviation
and its link to the ‘volume’ airline model is another key aspect. The economy within the
aviation system is complex: a large proportion of airline profits are gleaned from
secondary sales on aircraft and in the airport; airports make deals with airlines to trial
and then establish new routes; regional development focuses around airport
development. These regional drivers, and the alliances of interests which underpin
them (brining together inward investment, local economic development agencies, local
attractions, airports and airlines), represent an upward ratchet on the system, which
will be hard to break or reverse in the absence of policy intervention.
Policy insight: Although reducing the number of passengers is against the grain of
these combined ratchets and trends we have identified, reducing the rate of growth is
likely to be more achievable, assuming political intervention.
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Consumption-production systems in aviation
Changes have occurred as to what ‘flying’ means to individuals. Social routines impose
a structure on a year in which flying
Box 3 A few examples of how flying is
becomes ‘essential’ in order to ‘fit things
linked to what individuals are doing
differently: in’. Structuring around a busy, highly
scheduled year, and around other day-
- Day/weekend trips to the States
to-day constraints produces a
compression of time and distance that
- Celebrations abroad; ‘groups on the move’
encourages flying. It is difficult to break
- Diversifying the conduct of sport through this structural dependence on flying as
international competitions the issue is much deeper than simply
- Trophy tourism addressing flying alone.
- Knowledge work – ‘good’ work involves
international travel Policy insight: Policymakers need an
awareness of systemic, structural,
- Raising the standards of education –
overseas curriculum development
infrastructural and institutional
interdependencies, especially practice
- Visiting dispersed friends and family
commitments.
There was willingness to adjust at the margins to address environmental concerns,
compensating through tree planting etc., but some felt ‘environmentalists’ were
‘harbingers of doom’. There are contradictions between what constitutes a ‘good’
citizen – well-travelled, culturally educated etc. – and a ‘good’ environmental citizen.
Policy insight: Policy has to take into account the dilemmas and conflicts of ‘good
citizenship’. Care must be taken in view of a potential backlash against aviation and
climate change policies.
A.4. Industry workshop and scenarios
Based on the outcomes of the consumer and industry interviews highlighted above, the
project team initially developed four alternative scenarios for the future of the aviation
industry. In addition, a fifth scenario was conceived during a high-level aviation-
industry stakeholder workshop to represent a more ambitious future for aviation in
terms of fuel efficiency and carbon intensity improvements envisaged.
Box 4 The scenarios consider drivers that All scenarios are based on current
may impact on aviation system growth rates, EU data, influenced by current UK
technology & operational management: and EU political and regulatory
- Open Skies agreement drivers, set within a wider
- EU ETS international context. Each assumes
- Regional economic development plans aviation must make efforts to curb or
- Local/grass routes constraints on development ultimately reduce CO2 emissions in
- Technology development line with a 450ppmv CO2 future. The
scenarios resulting in the highest CO2
emissions put significant additional pressure on other industries to decarbonise very
significantly by 2030. The scenarios are giving neutral descriptors: Blueberry, Apple,
Strawberry, Blackcurrant and Orange.
Scenario descriptions
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The Blueberry scenario is characterised by continued globalisation with moderate
climate change drivers. People fly more frequently to an increasingly diverse set of
destinations so that growth in aviation remains strong across all categories of flight.
Recent historical rates of improvement in fleet fuel efficiency are maintained, improving
post 2025. There are only minor improvements in carbon intensity. Cumulative
emissions are higher than had emissions remained stable at 2005 levels. Aviation is an
important driver of regional economic policy and results in the growth of business
parks surrounding regional airports (Figure A.2.).
The Apple scenario is characterised by a continuation of current technology and high
growth trends, with the addition of moderate climate change drivers. A continuation of
current rates of improvement in fuel efficiency combined with the strong growth in the
sector results in cumulative emissions and hence climate change impacts from
aviation, far higher than if emissions had remained stable at 2005 levels. The pace of
technology development is hindered by an absence of outside investment and a
loosely constrained EU ETS cap. Global competition for and public backlash against
biofuels, within a limited supply, severely constrains carbon intensity improvements.
(Figure A.2.)
Blueberry Apple
Figure A2: Blueberry & Apple scenarios in terms of CO2 emissions, 1990-2030. The dotted line shows
emissions if no improvement in carbon intensity is made. The pale blue solid bricks show the cumulative
emissions from aviation if emissions remain at 2005 levels. The coloured bricks (blue or green) illustrate
the additional cumulative emissions (above those if emissions remained at 2005 levels) caused by the
continued growth coupled with carbon intensity improvements.
The Strawberry scenario is characterised by a requirement for cumulative emissions
from 2005 onwards to be equivalent to if emissions had remained constant at 2005
levels. A number of factors combine to put the breaks on the expansion of the aviation
industry which experiences a rapid decrease in growth rates in the short and medium-
term. Improvements in energy efficiency, combined with significant penetration of low-
carbon fuels results in a relatively low climate change impact from the aviation sector,
with cumulative emissions equivalent to zero growth between now and 2030. Keen to
halt the slow down in growth, the aviation industry focuses on the development of a
global biofuel market, with high penetration of low carbon fuels seen from 2025
onwards (Figure A.3.).
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Consumption-production systems in aviation
The Blackcurrant scenario is characterised by a reduced growth rate within an EU ETS
scheme operating under a tight cap. There is some market maturity in demand for
short-haul flights. Increases in fuel efficiency and reductions in carbon intensity
generate cumulative emissions slightly higher than if there had been no emissions
increase from 2005 levels. Aviation is not a strong driver of regional economic
development, but regional airports are able to expand somewhat, supported by a
diversification into leisure and other commercial activities (Figure A.3.).
Strawberry Blackcurrant
Figure A3: Strawberry & Blackcurrant scenarios in terms of CO2 emissions, 1990-2030. The dotted line
shows emissions if no improvement in carbon intensity is made. The pale blue solid bricks show the
cumulative emissions from aviation if emissions remain at 2005 levels. The coloured bricks (red or purple)
illustrate the additional cumulative emissions (above those if emissions remained at 2005 levels) caused by
the continued growth coupled with carbon intensity improvements. Solid red indicates where cumulative
emissions fall below 2005 levels.
The orange scenario was the only scenario
Orange
conceived during the workshop. It is
characterised by a very strong drive towards
technology and efficiency improvements
alongside continued growth trends. This
strong additional drive coupled with a tight
EU ETS emission cap results in cumulative
emissions somewhat lower than if they had
remained constant from 2005. The aviation
industry continues to grow, but at a reduced
rate from historical trends. There is some
market maturity in demand for short-haul
flights. Financial incentives encouraging
flexible partnerships between airlines in
managing demand for flights allows for an
Figure A3: Orange scenario. See
additional rise in load factors, and further previous captions for full
improves the efficiency of air traffic control description. The solid orange area
and management. shows where cumulative emissions
fall below 2005 levels.
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The workshop proved extremely valuable in gaining insights from the aviation industry
as to how industry stakeholders see the future of aviation within the EU and in the
context of overarching climate change drivers. There was a general consensus that the
aviation industry should act to minimise its climate change impacts, and many
participants felt additional pressure was required to accelerate both innovation and roll-
out of new technologies. Participants agreed on the range of growth rates, operational
and rates of technological change presented in the scenarios, although went further to
conceive of the orange scenario, where the technological improvements are very much
greater than those seen in recent years. However, even when pushing the boundaries
to this extent, emissions by 2030 are only marginally below 2005 levels.
A.5. Next steps
Through this work on both stakeholder analysis and scenarios, we have demonstrated
the value of a systems approach to studying aviation and climate change. In policy
terms, this points to a need for an integrated suite of policies and initiatives.
The next stage of the gained insights from policy stakeholders both in relation to the
results presented within this report, and also in relation to policymaking within
conflicting political frameworks. A number of questions were asked including:
What is the value to policymakers of this research?
What key issues do the scenarios and interviews draw attention to?
What is the existing policy framework in addressing the aviation industry
and how is this framework changing?
What are different policymakers’ views on the components of an
integrated suite of policies to address the climate change problem (for
example, views on addressing current high rates of growth through a
moratorium on airport expansion coupled with incentives for
manufacturers to further improve fuel efficiency)?
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1. Introduction
The Tyndall funded project on consumption-production systems in aviation was jointly
conducted by researchers from the Manchester Institute for Innovation Research (part
of the Business School at Manchester university), and Tyndall Manchester. The project
starts from the premise that the environmental impact of aviation is caused by the pace
of improvements in fuel efficiency being outstripped by passenger growth. Complex
interactions between the airline manufactures, airport operators, airlines, air traffic
management and consumers are currently pushing the industry down a continued
rapid growth trajectory. The project aims to understand some of the drivers and
interactions between the actors, from an economic, sociological and institutional
perspective and so gain a new understanding of the aviation systems.
A series of interviews were conducted with key actors from within the aviation industry
and with frequent flyers. On the basis of this material, a series of draft scenarios were
developed aiming to synthesise the material from the interviews into a set of alternative
futures for the industry. The first draft of this report was prepared to feedback to the
aviation industry stakeholders who participated in the research the preliminary
research findings, and develop a series of aviation scenarios. This analysis was then
presented to policy makers with the aim of better understanding the policy debates
surrounding aviation and climate change. The report is split into 9 sections. Section 2
outlines the current aviation and climate change policy debate; Section 3 presents the
aims and objectives for the project; Section 4 presents the results to date from the
industry interviews; Section 5 presents the results to date from the consumer
interviews; Section 6 describes the workshop and feedback from industry
stakeholders; Section 7 outlines the scenarios; Section 8 discusses the feedback from
policy makers and Section 9 concludes the report.
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2. The Climate and Aviation Debate
Within the UK and the EU there is broad political agreement that we should make our
fair contribution to “avoiding dangerous climate change…”(DEFRA 2006; European
Commission 2007). In the absence of any explicit global consensus on an appropriate
metric for delineating dangerous from acceptable climate change, European leaders
have recently reiterated their commitment to “limiting average global temperature
increases to no more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels”. Choosing to aim for a
global temperature threshold allows governments at all levels to draw policy
conclusions on the action required through the link between temperatures,
atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, and hence cumulative emission
budgets.
Figure 1: Cumulative carbon budget for the EU 25
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As the most important greenhouse gas – CO2 – remains in the atmosphere for 100
years, CO2 accumulates the longer we continue to combust fossil fuels. Therefore, the
earlier we start to reduce emissions, the less demanding the emission reduction
pathway in the future. Unfortunately, the rate at which we are currently spending our
budget is severely limiting future options. The chart below illustrates this point in
relation to the EU’s carbon dioxide budget. If we are to remain within budget and avoid
extremely emission reduction rates, emissions must stabilise and begin to decline
across the aggregate of all sectors, within the next 5 years.
2.1. Policy conflicts
Given the evidence-base linking particular global temperature increases to
atmospheric levels of CO2 concentrations, and in turn the relevant available carbon
budget range, as presented in the latest IPCC report (IPCC 2007), coherent and
stringent policy measures are required to address the issue. However, as is often the
case in policymaking, an absence of joined-up thinking often encouraged by
departmentalism within governments, is clearly evident in relation to addressing
climate change. For example, until only recently have governments recognised the
importance of sectors whose emissions are growing rapidly (e.g. aviation and
shipping). In the case of the UK Government, it can be argued that their 2003 Energy
White Paper (DTI 2003) endorsing a 60% carbon reduction target based on a
550ppmv CO2 concentration (the level linked at the time with 2°C, this level is now
lower than 450ppmv) was at odds with its Aviation White Paper (DfT 2004b)
encouraging airport expansion, published in that same year (Bows & Anderson 2007).
The omission of emissions from international aviation and shipping stems from Kyoto
negotiations and debate surrounding complications in apportioning emissions to
nations. Within the EU, their emission reduction targets do not appear to explicitly
excluding aviation and shipping however. Furthermore, the proposal to include aviation
within the EU’s emissions trading scheme (ETS) is presented as the policy mechanism
for dealing with these emissions, without the need to incorporate them within national
carbon budgets (EU 2007). For this reason, the emissions budget for the EU is used
throughout this report.
2.2. Reducing emissions across an aggregate of all sectors
By presenting climate mitigation targets in terms of percentage reductions in particular
years, the UK and EU neglect the importance of cumulative emissions presented in
graph 1. Engaging with the crucial importance of cumulative emissions also allows a
better understanding of the issues relating to emissions trading both between sectors
and between nations. If it is assumed that under a 2°C target, significant emission
reductions are required across the EU, the policy response must address reducing
emissions across the aggregate of all sectors. Hence, within a trading scheme, those
sectors that are able to reduce emissions more easily will be able to sell permits to
sectors with few alternatives for emission reduction.
2.3. Barriers to emission reductions across the aviation sector
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The aviation sector is a clear example of an industry that is likely to find it extremely
challenging, if not impossible, to make emission reductions in the coming 4 decades, if
it is to continue to grow rapidly. Barriers specific or exacerbated by the aviation system
appear, from our analysis, to include:
- The industry being highly safety conscious and hence risk-adverse
- Technological constraints on the widespread use of low-carbon fuels
- Sustainability constraints on the widespread use of low-carbon fuels
- Slow fleet turnover
- High capital cost of infrastructure
- High rates of growth in passenger-km compared with other sectors
- Potentially very large emerging markets (China/India)
- Relatively mature technology in terms of current airframe design
- Relatively mature technology in terms of current engine design
- International nature of the technology and management systems
It is therefore likely that the significant emission reductions required across the
aggregate of all sectors will be being made primarily by non-aviation sectors. If the
aviation sector does reduce emissions, but only marginally, then emission reductions
in other sectors will need to be somewhat higher than currently envisaged. If, on the
other hand, the aviation sector’s emissions continue to grow, considerably more
pressure will be put on other sectors to reduce their emissions.
Given an appreciation that the sector must make efforts to curb or possibly ultimately
reduce CO2 emissions from aviation, scenarios presented in this report, and at the
workshop, aim to explore opportunities for emission mitigation across the aviation
system. Clearly and similarly to many other sectors, the challenge faced in diverting
the current growing emission pathway onto a new trajectory is extremely demanding. If
this was not the case, and an incremental change was required, it may be possible to
address the issue through an understanding of the technological and operational
improvements to efficiency currently and soon to be available. As this is not the case, it
is crucial to our understanding that the complex interactions that underpin the aviation
system, such as, for example, opportunities for new business models or regional
development plans, are explored through scenario analysis.
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3. Project outline
Section 1 has summarised the aviation and climate change debate, highlighting the
importance of aviation in terms of achieving climate change objectives. Understanding
the social, economic and institutional drivers that influence why people fly is therefore
of particular importance. The aviation industry’s growth is, some would argue, pivotal
to the creation of wealth in the UK. Socially, aviation has been established as central to
the broadening of cultural horizons and, with the advent of mass travel, has come to be
held as the right of consumers.
In recent years, the various ‘open skies policies’ have provided new business
opportunities for airlines, which, in the case of the low-cost airlines, have radically
altered how we ‘consume’ air travel. UK citizens are now more likely to take
independent holidays, as opposed to package deals, and short breaks by air have
increased by 9.5% per year between 1999 and 2003. Demand for aviation is the result
of complex interactions between consumers and the aviation industry (incorporating
airlines, travel agents, aerospace companies and airports), facilitated by the growth of
intermediaries and technologies such as internet based search engines; and within an
evolving regulatory context. This project focuses on a number of actors within the
system – the consumer, the industry and the intermediaries – to better understand how
demand for aviation has been constructed and instituted. Combining economic,
sociological and institutional approaches to explore the growth of aviation, it aims to
deepen our understanding of current consumption patterns and inform possible policy
options for mitigating aviation emissions. The project has four overall objectives:
To provide socio-economic explanations for growth in air travel from the perspective of
complex consumption-production systems and instituted economic processes
To assess the impact of the intermediaries on air travel demand
What forms of intermediation operate in aviation? What is the impact of internet-based
intermediation on the process of searching, deciding and booking breaks?
To investigate the historical junctures key to recent developments within the aviation
industry and understanding the unexpected amplification consequences
What are the impacts of regulation that has occurred within the past 15 years? Can
examples of amplification be attributed to new policy?
To analyse the notion of flying, which comprises of a combination of transport services,
surrounding institutions and technical infrastructures that take the traveller from one
destination to another by plane, within the context of practices surrounding the journey.
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3.1. Research design and process
The detailed conceptual framework adopted for the project is outlined in the project
technical report, but layers different levels of analysis, & draws from several theories
and disciplines, namely:
• Systems – through the lens of ‘complexity theory’
• Economy – through the lens of ‘instituted economy & markets’
• Innovation – through the lens of ‘business models’
• Consumption – through the lens of ‘practice theory’
The ‘interdependent systems’ perspective requires us to try and hypothesis &
qualitatively model or represent not only the system parts but also the relations and
relational interdependencies of the system parts. In social systems perspectives the
‘system parts’ can be represented by social groups or ‘classes’, assuming societies to
be internally socially differentiated. Figure 2. illustrates the research design, with the
main body of field-work consisting of qualitative open ended interviews with 5 actor
groups – or ‘classes of agent’. The aim was to capture the range of positions and
views across the consumption-production system.
Dissemination
Concept development ISDC conference
3 (Sweden, June 07)
Complexity & systems
1 Polanyi & instituted process
Innovation & Business models
Practice & Consumption
ESA
10
conference
(Sept 07)
Interviews
2 20 frequent flyers (Jan – June 2007) 11 journal articles
20 industry (Jan – August 2007)
Draft report
5 (Aug 07)
4 Scenario
development
7 Post workshop
report Industry
6
workshop
(Aug 07)
9 Policy report
Policy
8
interviews
(Oct 2007)
Figure 2: Tyndall’s Research process.
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Consumption-production systems in aviation
3.2. Consumers interviews
Between January and May 2007, 19 interviews, each lasting 1-2 hours, were
conducted with ‘frequent flyers’, individually and in special interest ‘mini-groups’ –
climbers, golfers, young university researchers. Frequent flyers were defined as those
who had flown for leisure purposes at least twice in the previous year.
The interviews explored in detail different ‘practices’ which involved flying in their
modern conduct (and so captured the changing contexts of the meaning of good or
appropriate conduct of that practice). We captured the relationships between flying,
travelling abroad, and practice in the carrying out of a range of practices – holidaying,
celebrating, visiting friends and family, climbing, playing golf, educating young people,
being a young university researcher etc. (these occasions were not mutually
exclusive). We captured North and South England residency to explore airport
differentiation, propensity to travel to airports, and the existence of a notion of
‘preferred’ airports and/or airlines and the emergence of habits concerning airport and
airline usage.
3.3. Industry interviews
19 ‘industry’ interviews, with representatives from 11 organisations were conducted
between January and April 2007. Informants were selected across 4 classes of agent,
initially contacted as result of previous participation in Tyndall Centre research (Bows,
Anderson and Upham, 2006), or other contact. Early interviewees were asked to
suggest appropriate industry players to participate in the research, and other
organisations were identified in this way. Participants are summarised in table x.
Table 1: Breakdown of industry interviewees
Class of agent Number of Sample characteristics
interviews
Airlines 4 Different business models represented
Airports 3 Large established hubs, small but growing regional
airports, new/emergent ‘potential’, and Northern
England/London airports, 1 airport related ngo3
Aircraft 2 2 or more interviewees represented different company
manufactures perspectives and functions
Air traffic 1 4 informants represented different dimensions of air traffic
control control operations
3
The NGO represents a range of airport and aviation interest groups, and has particular expertise in airport
expansion policy, the growth of regional airports, the UK local planning system and local concerns to airport
expansion
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Participation in the project was requested from within the commercial, operational, or
forecasting functions of the business, rather than with executives with an exclusive
‘environment’ brief. On some occasions multiple informant interviews were conducted
on the initiative of the organisation so that multiple functions were represented, and on
one occasion a corporate sustainability and responsibility executive was interviewed.
One academic with expertise of the aviation industry and aircraft technologies gained
from senior management position within the sector and on-going consultancy
assignments was interviewed.
All interviews were conducted in the UK, initially with a UK perspective. Our focus on
the UK was intentional to practically ‘bound’ the study and make it compatible with the
UK policy context which was the project start point (See Section1). However the need
for international perspective was highlighted by several informants and this was
followed up in the discussion, in particular when interviewing organisations with an
international scope or jurisdiction. Future research will intentionally ‘internationalise’
the project. The EU ETS was selected as a basis for the scenarios simply because of
its importance – we are thus mixing the UK and EU scale, which is instrumental but not
ideal.
The interviews followed a common broad structure:
• Brief outline of the organisation and the interviewee’s role within it.
• What drivers (past, current & future?) produce(d) the current aviation system and
what are the significant classes of agent? How have these changes shaped the
history and evolution of business models, the wider aviation system and the
organisation itself?
• How are the organisations within the aviation industry responding to pressure for
climate change/emissions reduction & climate change mitigation? What do these
pressures mean for different business models, and what are the specific responses
of the organisations? What mitigation options are available, and which look feasible
or likely?
• Discussions focused on specific policy and technological responses to climate
change, and expected future developments.
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Consumption-production systems in aviation
4. Complexity & the aviation consumption-production
system
The aviation industry has found itself caught up in perhaps the two most significant
problems facing contemporary society:
• Global warming
• Global security
The scale and significance of neither was anticipated, before 2000, yet they are now
compounding each other. As a result the global aviation system is in turbulent times,
and has experienced (according to one informant) “multiple shocks”. A key question is
therefore how/what sort of system must the aviation system become to be better able
to absorb and adapt to shocks and where will this resilience come from?
Further, arguably the fundamental relationship of commercial aviation with societies
has changed and is changing still. From glamorous darling and national industry
flagship, in the eyes of many it is now environmental villain, referred to as the
‘unacceptable face of capitalism’. Though the glamorous image and associated
practices linger in dress codes, anticipation of the first drink of the holiday etc. this is
often out of step with contemporary experience. For most of the consumers
interviewed, despite flying frequently, flying is necessary but not enjoyable. It is simply
something to be endured, a means to an end. One frequent flyer claimed to be terrified
each time she flew.
In addition, primarily with the onset of ‘volume passenger’ business models, package
holidays & charter flights and their impact on frequent flying and multiple ‘get-aways’,
aviation has changed its relationship with society and become familiar, taken for
granted and ubiquitous. These shifts can be captured as follows:
• Darling Villain
• Glamorous Ubiquitous
• Chandeliers Sheds
• Comfort Discomfort
• Exclusive Inclusive (crowded)
• Special Ordinary
• Luxury Basic
• Iconic national flag Regional gateways
• Inefficient Efficient
• National legacies Multiple business models, diversity
In terms of climate change – a key question becomes: which business model meets
the objectives of:
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a) Profitability?
At the level of individual businesses, but more interestingly at the level of business
model, will profits be made, and what implications will changes have for the re-
instituting of the aviation system as a whole?
b) System Resilience?
Where, at which level and how will resilience manifest itself if at all?
c) Reduced growth in emissions?
Are emission reductions compatible with objectives a) and b) and if so how? It could be
argued that in the long term, no economic systems or industries are viable unless
global emissions are brought within levels consistent with biosphere survival. Hence
the aviation system cannot be resilient in the absence of biosphere resilience.
Almost all industry informants declared themselves & their organisations’ to be
passionate about climate change’.
So what responses have occurred?
Where are the changes and innovations that will provide aviation system resilience
simultaneously with reductions in emissions growth?
So far, arguably the response has been to ‘dig in’. With some exceptions, there has
been little change in business strategy in response to the climate change issue. There
has been surprisingly little technological innovation in relation to airframes or engines
over the past 10 years with the main innovations have been in terms of business
models.
The feedback from the aviation industry interviews presented below will analyse the
responses from each of the actor groups in turn, focusing on each of the main issues
covered within the interviews in turn, namely drivers for growth, business strategies,
responses to climate change and other specific policies.
4.1. Airlines
What are the drivers for growth?
‘Volume’ airlines have asymmetric power over other agents e.g. regional airports,
manufacturers, air traffic control. They have been change agents whose source of
power is:
a) Building reserves from ‘volume’ cheap flights plus ‘captive audience’ for secondary
sales
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Consumption-production systems in aviation
b) Employer power, reducing costs from ‘flexible working’ e.g. cabin crews do other
tasks
c) Buying power over manufacturers as major buyers of planes, product of growth,
therefore drive efficiency of planes
d) Exit power over regional airports, geographic fluidity and risk of exit.
The ‘volume’ model relies on efficiency and cost reductions e.g. plane loading, plane
weight, plane turnaround, airport handling and staff utilisation.
Legacy airlines are more vulnerable with high cost base and less room to manoeuvre
(e.g. hub airport dependency and hence premium slot charges)
• The major airlines at constrained hubs benefit from added profitability
What are the business development strategies?
‘Volume’ carriers rely on increasing % revenue from secondary sales, the ‘volume’
model also provides a supply of flow-through customers for secondary sales within
airports. Routes are fluid and flexible; new routes are opened, old ones closed. This is
a continual process that may have implications for a place if flights are abandoned.
Point-to-point flights are favoured, and are aligned with regional airport growth,
facilitated by local economic development alliances. Carriers maintain tight control of
cost base, and are able to drive down costs due to asymmetric power with other ‘agent
classes’ (and employees). The technological strategy is to drive innovations via
tightening performance specifications e.g. engines. Mergers and acquisitions occur to
increase route complementarity and number of routes offered. ‘Volume’ carriers do not
anticipate a move into long-haul as this is a very different model.
Legacy carriers are keen to introduce larger planes e.g. the A380 to serve busy long
and medium haul routes. The hub and feeder flight model relies on good feeder
services to ensure that large planes from hubs are full, and may increase climate
change impacts through feeder flights. Infrastructure expansion is aligned to increase
the capacity of hubs. Worldwide alliances give access to and coverage of more routes.
Other carriers operate under a ‘diversity model’ with a portfolio of different businesses
in different business model ‘niches’ e.g. Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Blue (Australian
domestic airline). De-regulation is essential to open up closed markets e.g. Open
Skies. Aim to capture green niche market through biofueled planes.
What is the response to climate change?
‘Volume’ carriers argue that they have the newest fleets, quicker fleet turnover, most
efficient & lowest carbon emitting planes in the sky. This is supported by others within
the same coalition of agents e.g. regional airports. The market for older planes is an
area requiring further research, as newer more efficient aircraft in Europe may result in
EU ETS system leakage, and this is not currently being addressed. ‘Volume’ region-to-
region carriers argue that point-to-point flights are more fuel efficient, with a lower
emissions impact.
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Legacy carriers and their coalition of agents say the opposite e.g. hub airports, and
those who use larger planes (i.e. long haul) say short haul is problem.
What is the response to specific policies?
All actors are against Air Passenger Duty and indeed all fiscal instruments, but in
favour of ‘market mechanisms’.
All informants welcome EU ETS as it is a market mechanism which will impact on
supply and demand of the system. It offers the opportunity for aviation to trade its way
out of emissions reduction by trading with sectors better able to reduce emissions e.g.
“it doesn’t matter where the emissions reduction comes from”. “Airlines expect to have
to buy permits from day 1 – so could build up and use reserves to buy credits”. It
potentially has little impact on the price of flights if the costs could be absorbed.
Emissions would be unchanged or continue to grow. Emissions implications for
developing and non-EU nations have already been highlighted.
All are in favour of airport expansion – legacies favour hubs growth, ‘volume’ favours
regional airports, growth in capacity & number of new routes.
4.2. Airports
Airports are differentiated and face very different local contexts with different cost and
profitability implications:
• It is extremely difficult (historically) for new and emerging airports to make money,
very high breakeven point:
• High initial investment required in infrastructure and services especially to meet fire
and safety regulations.
• There are capacity constraints in terms of both terminals & runways at hubs,
particularly at those UK airports that have historically enjoyed market dominance.
Due to this dominance, these types of airport are formally regulated by the CAA in
conjunction with routine reference to the Competition Commission.
• Slots at the capacity constrained airports are very valuable
• Slot trading – a peculiar non-market economic exchange. Allocated by ‘grandfather
rights’ and ‘use it or lose it’. Slots are a highly valuable commodity at hub airports.
‘Volume’ carriers in alliance with new airports in vicinity of large cities avoid slot
trading regimes of hubs, they have more economic power to determine slot prices in
smaller ‘shed’ airports.
• Airports argue, they aren’t in an ‘unconstrained growth’ world – both hub and
regional airports face capacity constraints, all making a case for infrastructure
expansion to cope with passenger growth projections.
• Airport Master plans – although these plans provide a framework for investment
planning and are set in the context of traffic forecasts, growth estimates may
become normalised and imported into regional spatial and economic development
strategies. These become the ‘baseline’, facilitating a case for infrastructure
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Consumption-production systems in aviation
expansion with potential for further growth due to the rebound effect. This is an
important system ratchet. This point was argued against by one of the interviewees
who felt that airport investment, rather than the normalisation of master plans, was
‘behind the growth curve’.
• Coalitions of local economic development agencies including local government –
mix of public and private sector agents - mobilise around the case for local
economic development, inward investment and jobs.
• Alternatively coalitions including local governments, local residents and
environmental groups mobilise to oppose expansion e.g. climate change camp at
Heathrow.
• ‘Airport clusters’ and niche services provision around large cities. London –
Heathrow international hub; Gatwick, leisure, Luton 90% Easyjet & Ryanair, low cost
with bit of charter, City premium business & short haul P2P.
• Regional airports – localised catchment. London & domestic ‘hopping’. Short leisure
breaks where time constrained & want ‘most local’ airport. Freight hub? Integrated
freight transport – road/air.
• ‘Volume’ airlines – forward driver on regional airport development and expansion.
Point-to-point. Contract agreements are very demanding on small, new, regional
airports e.g. plane turnaround and ground handling speeds.
• Differentiated drivers, cost base, context & reasons for air traffic growth short,
medium, long haul.
• Airport models as centres of movements of advanced knowledge workers providing
integrated (rail, road, air) transport mode hubs accessible to highly mobile &
frequent flying knowledge workers, e.g. Chaleroi, Brussels.
The rebound effect is when an
improvement in terms of efficiency
leads to a higher rate of uptake or use
of the appliance/mode of transport etc,
resulting in an overall increase in
energy consumption or emissions. A
useful new report on the rebound effect
has recently been published by the
UKERC (Sorrell 2007)
• Airport master-plans
• Hubs – priority is coping with passenger volume – deal with infrastructure
bottlenecks.
• Case for motor/magnet for local economic development. Provides powerful
discourse aligned regional politics and devolution of economic development
responsibility across Europe. Politics of regions.
• Airports-airlines engage in non-market financial exchanges/agreements to
encourage flights and passengers with spending power into local economy – route
development fund, joint marketing schemes. Aim for airports to increase passenger
throughput and spending at terminals – shopping & entertainment malls. Aim for
local economic development agents, attract inward investment, bring tourism spend,
provide jobs. Nationally important source of export revenues. Airlines ‘experiment’
with viability of new routes. Airlines – increase potential for secondary sales – car
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parks, accommodation. Under gaze of anti-competition regulators. Public owned
airports not permitted to use public funds in this way except RDF.
• New large jets provide high volume flow-through of passengers. Need to adapt
airport infrastructure. Only few airports can take them. Alignment of agents – hub &
large airports, legacy and long-haul airlines, manufacturers to push system to
accommodate large jets.
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Consumption-production systems in aviation
What are the business development strategies?
Different types of airports have different development strategies. The ‘volume’ model
relies on a high throughput of passengers – “pile em high sell em fast”. Business &
premium passengers are separated from crowds through different airports &
differentiated terminal/lounge facilities.
What are the responses to climate change?
The case for growth made on economic development grounds. Emissions reduction
focusing on improving ground efficiency – taxi-ing, carbon footprint of airports.
What is the response to specific policies and instruments?
Airport masterplans are a significant instrument, catalysing growth. Little in way of
climate change mitigation policies impacting specifically on airport activities was raised
in interviews.
4.3. Air Traffic Control
• Much is being done to improve efficiency through air traffic management operations
& new radar technologies, both in the air and on the ground. Other agent classes
say there is much to do, and that the system is not incentivised to change (quickly).
• ATC primary objective is passenger safety. Airlines require efficiency from ATC to
reduce fuel burn from time held in air and on the ground.
• Peculiar market and non-market exchange relations. Contract/licence with regulator
CAA. Two parts to business. NSL- air traffic control at major airports & commercial
arm, NEL – en routes services. Revenue is from airports and airlines for services in
air (en-route) and on ground. Ownership – 49% government, 42% airlines
(customers are therefore also owners but feed through different routes of dialogue?)
• Forecasting & modelling techniques very sophisticated at regional, city & airport
level. But ‘growth of budget airlines took everyone by surprise’.
What are the drivers for growth?
• Public safety is the primary driver. Direct relation & response to regulatory change
balanced with commercial revenue generating objectives (history of financial deficit).
• Commercial & revenue generated from airlines & airports. Has a responsibility to
airspace users to provide ‘capacity to meet predicted growth’.
• Monopoly provider of ATC & ATM services
• Technological developments making a large impact on route management e.g.
enabling clearance from departure airport, but requires accurate flight time
information. Reducing altitude between stacking planes. Peel off transatlantic flights
towards destination airports sooner.
• Rationalisation to create fewer routing centres in UK & Europe. Negotiations are
slow due to national interests and historically nationally organised ATM across
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Europe. Implications for ATC change in revenue patterns e.g. income from use of
air-space from more direct routing
What are the business development strategies?
• Need to balance multiple objectives such as safety and environment, which may be
in conflict e.g. noise & night-flying for local residents
• Rationalisation of EU airspace. Slow process.
• Technological development (radar technologies advancing fast)
What is the response to climate change?
• Taken very seriously, welcome dialogue.
• Welcome climate science to help decisions with respect to conflicting objectives e.g.
contrail formation and routing
• Focus on technology and operational rationalisation to reduce fuel burn.
• New air-space design – can be proposed by anyone but takes 3 years to implement.
What is the response to specific policies and instruments
• Direct relationship to government and under control of government executive
agencies (eg CAA) for operating licence requirements and standards. Direct
response agency to new Directives.
4.4. Manufacturers
• Technological lock-in for many decades – incremental adjustments made to
remarkably unchanging product ‘families’. There was no incentive to change.
• Oligopoly businesses ‘watching each other and responding’. Airbus – Boeing. Each
gains advantage at different times on the S curve. Takes something radical to shift
to new S curve (standard diffusion theory of technological development)
• Only small number manufacturers/assemblers (effectively two). Governments are in
close relationship and can directly influence.
• Symbolic relevance of aviation manufacture to UK Plc. History of government
support to maintain dominant global position & significance.
• Arguably, airlines recently more pro-active in directing technical innovation from
point of view of fuel efficiency & loading factors, lighter planes, new materials
(carbon composites).
• Global bottle-necks in supply of raw materials for radically new planes – ie carbon
composite production capacity. Suggested government support to accelerate and
address carbon composite production bottlenecks needed. Other industrial
applications drawing on capacity-constrained supply of raw materials for carbon
composites (complex systems interdependencies & openness).
• Airline-manufacturers alliances forming to address emissions reduction driver. This
appears to have hugely accelerated technical innovation very recently. E.g. Boeing
– Virgin Atlantic (and others) aim to demonstrate bio-fuelled jet by 2008. Biofuel
supply chains will come under competitive pressure from alternative (more important
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Consumption-production systems in aviation
uses). E.g. crops for fuels versus crops for food. Aviation would be a major taker of
productive output. Land pressure for agriculture/food and deforestation (emissions
implication and rebound/secondary consequences of aviation push to greener
fuels). Ethical and equity considerations.
• How to imagine alternative futures? Some methods are surprisingly traditional, if
sophisticated. Forecasting and trends analysis – standard instituted method and
procedures. Growth is modelled as a function of GDP, exports, consumer price
index. Vulnerabilities in techniques which miss things outside model e.g. trend to
regionalisation and new business models. “Regional P2P model took them by
surprise”. Supplemented by Foresight methods to see how network will evolve and
encourage different types of development.
• No consensus from interviews as to whether the A380 is good or poor for emissions.
Debate if hub to hub or point to point is more efficient. Needs clarification and
validation over which aircraft has better emissions performance under which use
and growth contexts.
What are the drivers for growth?
• Airlines seek fuel and loading efficiencies to reduce fuel consumption per passenger
• More recently embracing emissions mitigation agenda
• Growth markets are for Chinese and Indian markets
• ‘Volume’ airlines leading market of newer aircraft,
What are the business development strategies?
• Responsive to ‘customers’ (airlines)
• Efficiency improvements from engineering improvements e.g. domestic load factors
up from 70% to 80%.
What is the response to climate change?
• New craft e.g. turbo-props for shorter haul where noise, speed, comfort can be
compromised
• Welcome dialogue on environment, emissions and climate change, it is a business
priority.
What is the response to specific policies and instruments?
• Impacting via other agents – primarily airlines
The initial feedback from the industry interviews is summarised in Table 2.
National legacy Charter Volume, low-cost Diversity
Airlines BA & Alliances Thomas Cook Easyjet Virgin Atlantic
Diverse group,
media to trains.
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Aviation
businesses also
diverse - long haul
vs
Australian internal
Key to Long haul, hub to Dependency on Built on trend in short and Diverse portfolio,
model hub seasonal or medium haul short beaks; risk spread?
traditional holidays point to point; driven Backwards
and destinations, regionalisation of integration?
and aviation; use of internet;
booking practices low cost.
(travel agents)
Business New international Specialist travel Open new routes, monitor Further
growth markets & companies and and close if not profitable; diversification;
strategy destinations; long holidays? secondary sales; new new business
haul short breaks planes to increase fleet opportunities.
efficiency.
Airports Hubs & feeders; Regional and cities; Mixed airports
large aircraft frequent flights provide depending on
provide customer customer volume to niche
volume to terminals
terminals
ATC Manage volume – Redesign airspace a Open-skies –
first come first priority if to cope with Busier long haul
served or prioritise P2P with minimised route routes; more
large craft? handling hand-overs. carriers
Emissions implications of
new airspace patterns?
Who has Hub airports Losing power as Airlines Mixed,
power? traditional holiday varies according to
practices change niche,
Which are Hubs/legacy Travel Airlines, airports, local
key airlines companies/custome economic development
relations in rs agencies, manufacturers,
coalition of passengers - airlines
agents manage relationships in
own best interest
Why/how? Power of entry/exit
over airports, buying
power over
manufacturers, systems
to closely monitor trends
& usage patterns
Emissions/ Believe larger Welcome EU ETS, in Welcome EU ETS;
environme planes better for profitable position to does not matter
nt strategy reduced trade, claim point to point where emissions
emissions, claim better for emissions are reduced, trade
hub model better with low emitting
for emissions sectors.
Table 2: Summary of interview responses
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4.5. Consumers
The consumer interviews focused upon the following issues:
a) The changing social norms and standards of practice that involve flying
b) How frequent flyers deal with and talk about the emissions implications of flying
c) The implications and recommendations for policy instruments to address the climate
change issue: what implications and recommendations?
We begin by defining practice in the context of aviation, before moving on to highlight
the key external factors that have contributed to changing notions of flying, and the
changes to practice that have emerged as a consequence.
‘Getting away’: is flying the practice?
Is flying the practice or is flying part of a constellation of activities involved in getting
away? We can define practice as a set of shared understandings, sayings, doings,
actions, procedures, with norms and standards of competence and conduct. Practices
contribute to and signal social stratification. We argue that flying is not a practice as it
is insufficiently autonomous and differentiating. Instead, flying is constituted by the
practices to which it contributes - people don’t fly for flying sake, they fly to enable
them to do something else. So, we fly to get away, to holiday, to celebrate, to work, to
climb, to play golf, to travel…
Importantly, air travel has contributed to a raising of the ‘qualitative’ standard of
practices – to do it well or better we have to fly. This change in the practice-place
relation creates structural interdependence between flying and the practice.
Significance: theory & social change, institutional rigidities, i.e. flying/practice is
the object of analysis, and we suggest that the flying/practice relationship will be
hard to break using voluntary means, hence providing implications for policy
intervention.
The 3 ‘New’ dimensions of flying
From both the industry and consumer interviews, three important external factors have
contributed to changing notions of flying.
a) The internet
Used for co-ordination, searching, booking, chatter, afterwards
b) Low-price flights
Consumers reported that the price of flying was “absurdly low” e.g. penny flights.
Little evidence of price sensitivity emerged from the interviews.
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c) Regionalisation of aviation
The role of the political-economy: politics of regions, regionalising responsibility for
economic development, alliances of airports, airlines and local economic actors and
place competition. This is instituted in the UK through national transport policy and
airport ‘Masterplans’. The ‘volume’ model relies on the ‘pull-through’ of consumers.
What changes have occurred to the notion of flying?
From the consumer interviews it emerges that a number of crucial changes have
occurred to the notion of flying.
• There has been a ‘racheting’ up of occasions where it is deemed appropriate to fly,
and a linking between different practices (practice relations).
• Daily social routines are imposing a structure on the year in which flying becomes
essential to being able to ‘fit’ things in.
• Flying is tied into a set of consumption processes and procedures.
• Responsibility for the environmental implications of flying are traded off against
other responsibilities e.g. relative commitment.
Ratchets
What are people doing differently?
• Raising the standard of occasion – e.g. day-trip to Lapland to visit Santa.
Consumption experience – authentic fantasy, artificial reality “The elves ears were
so real”.
• Raising standard of celebration. ‘Groups on the move’ – fly for ‘night out’ or
weekend celebration (birthdays, anniversaries, retirement).
• Diversifying the conduct of sport or hobby (internationalisation of climbing and
growth of ‘sport climbing’; cultural capital and status raised by knowledge of golf
courses abroad; football spectators and international games attended).
• Raising standards and norms of ‘education’. Curriculum development programmes
for less motivated students – organisational skills, confidence, cultural & language
awareness, improve peer and classroom relations.
• Trophy tourism. Tours comprising ‘bite-sized packages’, 4 days/3 nights to ‘know’ a
place. Iconic symbols “Fidel will soon be dead”. City breaks ‘ticking’ cities &
countries.
• Knowledge work – competent ‘good’ work involves travel. (social networks improve
social relations with colleagues), extend or re-visit for leisure (e.g. re-visit Prague
with group of twelve). Work/leisure boundaries are fuzzy ‘bit of both’. Perks of low
paid jobs. “Get to go to fun cool places”.
• Visit dispersed family and friends. Meet in 3rd location.
• Supplier induced growth in aviation– place marketing & iconic symbols; loyalty
schemes e.g. ‘Nectar’ points – more grocery consumption produces more flying
consumption; buy one ticket get another half price
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Consumption-production systems in aviation
Significance: separate and mutually re-enforcing ratchets increases frequency
of flying trips.
Consumption processes
How do people do things?
a) Structuring, layering & time-scheduling the year :
• Main (summer or long) holiday, book 6-9 months ahead
• Winter ‘break’
Planned weekends
• Spontaneous/impulse/unanticipated weekends.
b) Structuring around (other) practice & institutional constraints
• Work – e.g. small business
• School holidays
• Domestic family duties
• Life stage – retirement provides resources and time but health and insurance
constraints
• Young family- resource and journey length constraints
The trips that consumers wish to make in a given year have to be planned around
other time commitments. These commitments produce a time/distance compression
that induces flying.
Significance – given the institutional limits and drivers of flying frequency, it is
hard to break the structural dependence on flying
Consumption: process and procedures
How & Where does holiday/enjoyment begin & end?
a) Planning/talking, Booking (buying, packing) & role of intermediaries
• Trusted travel agents e.g. “Ron”, “Yvonne”, specialist knowledge, trust & security,
loyalty & always booking via the same people.
• Internet – learning how to use it, social dimension and enjoyment of, cultural capital
from knowing ‘how to’ find good deal.
b) The airport
• Check in, customs, security – “twitched”, “not in control”, “anxious”, “stressed”.
• Passengers at airports are “captive consumers” who are in the holiday mood, so
spend money on “treats” “duty free”, “on automatic pilot”, “books, magazines & food
for plane”.
• Food/drink consumption all times of night & day - “normal meal routines and time
schedules disrupted by flight times and time zones”, “head straight for the bar”
• Schipol - ‘See, buy, fly’, ‘Buy bye’
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c) On the plane
• Unanimously uncomfortable, too little space
• Don’t talk to strangers “I chatted to the man next to me on the plane, told him about
Manchester and he turned up at my door asking for a date”
• Legacy rituals e.g. first holiday drink, plastic food, entertainment
d) Airport – return journey
• “Use up” holiday money, foreign currency
• Gifts to take back
e) Back home
• Share photos with group by email
• We talk but with care, don’t want to be seen as a “travel bore”
• After a few days begin thinking about next trip
Significance – consumption and lucrative economy. Airports benefit from airline
‘volume’ strategy as passenger flow through terminals increases revenue e.g.
airports offer inducements to airlines. Secondary sales are an important
element of revenue for airlines, from airports. This is the real and growing
‘economy of flying, but it has limits and there are diseconomies of large
terminals and large volumes of passengers.
Relative Commitments: environment & emissions implications
What are consumer responses and strategies to the aviation and climate change
dilemma?
a) There is some willingness to share in responsibility, & willingness to adjust at the
margins – use other modes of transport, reduce impulse flights/weekends. This is
tempered by a perception of the media and scientists as “harbingers of doom”.
b) The dilemma is that people are committed to the practice that flying enables. A
‘good citizen’ is someone who travels to: appreciate other cultures, work, visit family,
educate own & others children. These are judged to be higher than environmental
‘good citizen’ e.g. “I will have a conscience but I won’t not fly to Miami”
c) Consumers engage in compensation – other actions are offered, or get rolled into
the environment argument e.g. “I planted 7 trees on golf course”, “I cycle to work”.
Others include recycling, care when buying food, local food, low-carbon activities
when get to destination. (These are often coincidental). “I am an environmentalist”.
d) There is displacement concerning aviation and climate change – politicians are seen
as duplicitous over the issue, other countries & sectors emit more e.g. energy use in
home, road vehicles & unnecessary trips, investment in public transport is required.
Technology will solve the problem
e) There was suspicion of environmentalists – “demonising” & “dehumanising” flyers,
conspiracy of environmentalists,
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4.6. Policy implications
The following draft conclusions have been drawn from consumer interviews, and which
have implications for the implementation of policies designed to address the aviation
and climate change issue.
a) The linking of flying with other practices e.g. hen parties in Barcelona, and other
upwards ratchets will make it hard to change behaviour through voluntary means.
b) Policy makers need an awareness of systemic, structural, infrastructural and
institutional interdependencies especially practice commitments.
c) Policy has to take into account the dilemmas and conflicts of ‘good citizenship’,
particularly given that critique of flying is very recent. People are committed to the
environment, but are ‘more’ committed to practices that flying enables.
d) Reducing flying is against the grain of major socio-economic shifts of contemporary
capitalism – knowledge economy, internationalisation of practices, regionalisation of
political-economy of aviation, geographies of family & friends
e) There is some room & willingness to change ‘at the margins’ e.g. transport mode
substitution.
f) Care must be taken in view of the potential for backlash against aviation and climate
change policies, and a growing suspicion of environmentalist conspiracy.
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6. Aviation workshop
Given the aim of the project is to better understand the drivers of growth within the
aviation sector, it is essential that those stakeholders involved in the interview process
are given an opportunity to feed their views and ideas into the research directly. To do
this, the project team devised an aviation workshop with one general and two specific
aims, namely: 1) To encourage discussion and interaction between aviation
stakeholders and the research team to provide a forum for mutual learning in relation
to the aviation industry and climate change, 2) To feedback the results of both the
industry and consumer interviews 3) To discuss and develop a series of future aviation
scenarios, each viable within a low-carbon EU. The workshop was held in London at
the end of August, 2007.
Although the project team devised a structured timetable for the workshop’s activities,
the more general aim of encouraging discussion and interaction between participants
and the research team dictated that if the discussion session impinged on the
schedule, it was allowed to ensue within reason. The structure of the workshop is
summarised below:
- Motivations for intending the workshop (all participants)
- Presentation on the climate change context (Alice Bows)
- Questions on presentation and general discussion (all participants)
- Scenarios presentation (Sarah Mander)
- Questions on presentation and general discussion (all participants)
- Brainstorm: What are the requirements for a successful aviation industry:?
(industry stakeholders)
- Scenario assessment and development (all participants)
- Presentation feeding back results of consumer and industry interviews (Sally
Randles)
- General discussion (all participants)
In addition, participants were asked to provide the research team with any additional
comments on any part of the documentation, workshop or workshop process by email
or during the workshop.
To present the key discussions and findings from the workshop, this section will
broadly follow the structure of the day. However, where discussions revolved around a
specific topic, these comments are grouped together. The final part of this section will
summarise some of the key areas of interest generated by the workshop, with further
analysis and reflection from the project team.
6.1. Motivation for stakeholder attendance
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The workshop was attended by a small number of industry representatives, many of
whom had been interviewed by the project team, covering the range of actors identified
as key agents within the system; namely, airports, airlines, manufacturers, and air
traffic control. In addition, two members of the workshop group represented UK
environmental policy. Participants were asked to comment on their motivation for
attending the workshop. Responses were extremely positive, with an overwhelming
consensus in relation to the importance of the climate change issue for the aviation
sector. In particular, comments such as environmental sustainability being “core to our
business”; a desire to become “the most sustainable airline in the word”; and a need to
“understand the climate change implications for the aviation industry better”.
6.2. Aviation within the context of climate change
To begin the workshop, attendees were presented with the wider climate change
context in relation to the cumulative emissions profile illustrated in Figure 1. The full
presentation is presented within the Annex of this report. Key messages from the
presentation included:
- If 2°C is to remain an EU target, the emissions pathway to 2050 is extremely
challenging
- Although all sectors will unlikely reduce emissions by the same scale, all sectors
will be required to play their part
- Buying out all emissions from non-OECD countries is unlikely to be possible
within a 2°C constraint
- Aviation’s emissions within the EU continue to grow rapidly
- Need to explore and better understand technological, operational and business
opportunities to curb growth in or ultimately reduce emissions
Specific comments from participants in relation to the presentation focussed primarily
on two issues: confusion over the focus being UK, EU or global emissions; concern
over distorting the picture for policymakers by highlighting the issues for aviation
without considering other sectors.
The following comments are made to address these points.
UK, EU or global focus
Taking heed of previous stakeholder comments during Tyndall’s Phase 1 aviation
project in relation to concern over focussing too specifically on the UK, the
quantification side in this case is carried out from the perspective of the EU25. In other
words, when comparing the EU’s aggregate CO2 emissions with those from the
aviation sector, aviation’s contribution is calculated as the sum of domestic flight CO2
emissions plus international bunker fuel CO2 emissions for international flights. This
broadly approximates to 50% of all international arrivals and departures from EU
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nations. Although it may be argued that as an international industry, aviation emissions
should only be compared with total global emissions, in reality there are currently no
relevant global climate policies. The EU aims to play its fair role in ensuring that
temperatures do not rise by more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and as such
has set a target based on stabilising global atmospheric concentrations of CO2. By
choosing a global concentration target, emission reductions must come from the
aggregate of all sectors falling within the EU’s control and remit.
It was argued by some participants that emissions from emerging Chinese markets, for
example, would, under this target regime, be unfairly counted within EU25 emission
inventories. It was suggested that because industrialising countries are allowed to
increase their emissions, it is unfair ‘international’ emissions should be counted within
inventories for those nations’ aiming to reduce their emissions. They argued that short-
haul flights are growing much more slowly than the long-haul flights to emerging
economies, and therefore “aviation is the only sector where the growth in emissions
from the developing world show up in the emission inventories of the developed world”.
In response to this, firstly, only half of the emissions from a flight from an EU nation to,
for example, China are being counted within this method. So the question remains, is it
legitimate to include this half of the emissions within EU budgets? Within any
international industry, new markets will appear and develop rapidly, whilst old markets
may decline or even disappear. If the EU were to glean no benefit from an EU to China
flight, for example, then the easy solution would be to disallow such flights in the
interest of emission budgets. However, the EU clearly perceives benefit, be it
economic or cultural, in providing a link between such nations, and it is therefore
appropriate to take responsibility for the emissions associated with it.
One valid criticism relates to the focus of analysis being the EU level, while the
interviews carried out to inform the project were with UK aviation representatives. In
defence, the representatives were interviewed with the EU context in mind, and
generally responded appropriately. However, the team will take care to ensure that
policy messages specific to the UK are not blindly applied to the EU25.
Distorting the picture for policymakers
Finally, in relation to consideration of other sectors, and ensuring a balanced view for
policymakers, most of the research team were previously involved in a substantial
project considering the entire UK energy system. Within this project, (Anderson, et al.
2005; Mander, et al. 2007) the team came to the conclusion that unlike any of the other
sectors; road transport, shipping, households, industry etc, the aviation sector had far
greater barriers to reducing its absolute emissions over the coming decades.
Therefore, the policy focus on aviation is grounded on a significant and fairly assessed
research base.
Aviation in the EU ETS
There was a broad discussion relating to the EU ETS. Participants were in agreement
aviation should be included within the EU ETS. However, some intimated concern over
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its effectiveness. In particular, a general consensus evolved that aviation should
ultimately be treated like every other sector, but there was an acceptance that under
the current proposal, this would not initially be the case. One danger highlighted was a
distortion of the price of carbon at the point when aviation joins, thus the objective to all
emissions being within the scheme in the first instance. The suggestion was made for
either the allocation being irrelevant or for a full auctioning system to be employed.
However, it was felt important to recognise the requirement for a transition process for
aviation. “Finding a level playing field is a transition effect.”
The problem of dealing with aviation within the EU in the absence of a global
consensus on the issue was brought into the debate for the second time. Aviation is
growing in the EU, therefore some felt special consideration for this sector was
necessary, however one participant pointed out the similarity in growth within this
sector globally. If growth is to be constrained within the EU, then to avoid a loss in
competitive advantage as business operations go out on a limb, growth should be
constrained globally. A fair playing field and common goal for the global aviation
industry was recommended. Dealing with aviation emissions within the EU was
considered by one participant to be “plugging a dam with a pinhead”. Concern was
raised in relation the desire in the EU to show pioneering and responsible behaviour
being taken advantage of. Again, another participant argued for the ideal situation
being global consensus and policy, but in its absence, it was necessary for the EU to
show leadership in tackling aviation emissions.
6.3. Scenarios
The scenarios discussed at the workshop, and modified as a result, are presented in
Section 7. However, discussion related to the scenarios is presented here.
Description summary
The scenarios, more fully described in section 7, were presented in the form of both
quantitative and qualitative information. On the quantitative side, demand in terms of
passenger-km growth and improvements in terms of carbon efficiency per passenger-
km were presented both numerically and in graphical form. The graphs presented
illustrate one trajectory with no improvement in carbon intensity, and one with
improvements brought about through a combination of fuel efficiency gains,
operational efficiency gains and the use of alternative low-carbon fuels. The wider the
gap been the two trajectories, the larger the impact of measures employed to improve
the carbon intensity of aviation. The widest gap occurs in the Orange Scenario – a
scenario conceived during the workshop by participants. On the qualitative side, the
scenarios are each given an EU-context storyline with implications drawn out for each
of the key actors: manufacturers, airports, airlines, air traffic control land passengers.
Furthermore, a short paragraph relating to the global context is supplied.
Scenario discussions
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One of the main concerns in relation to understanding the scenarios was the use of
misleading or confusing language such as “weak EU ETS” or “successful open skies
agreement”. Participants wanted more clarity over the implications of a “weak EU ETS”
for other sectors. In particular, if there is a “weak EU ETS”, what is driving down
emissions in other sectors? The research team explained in this case, a range of
additional regulatory or fiscal measures are in place to drive down non-aviation
emissions. The scenarios in Section 7 have been adjusted to reflect this legitimate
concern. Similarly, value judgements depending on the actor’s point of view will be
made more explicit.
One participant disagreed with the team’s interest in considering what might be driving
passenger demand. Instead, they felt all was required were scenarios of plausible
demand growth. They went further to suggest that “demand always exists”, but “all you
care about is the demand number, not where it comes from”. However, a number of
other participants disagreed, particularly when demand for flying was compared with
demand for housing. Other participants highlighted housing is more of a ‘need’ than
flying and argued a different set of drivers was behind demand for air travel compared
with demand for housing.
This discussion further developed to consider the relationship between GDP trends
and passenger demand. One workshop participant said there was evidence to show
that GDP is key to demand, with price not, in fact, a huge driver. Instead, if individuals
have the “ware withal to fly”, then they will. They suggested that “other factors”, such
as price, only marginally effect demand, which is why “taxes are practically irrelevant”.
If a nation’s GDP reaches a particular point enabling flying, then “people want to travel
like others”. When considering emissions trading, this was seen as a “vehicle for
change, but not the ultimate solution” due to its limitations in effecting demand or
encouraging new research and development.
There was a strong feeling amongst a number of participants that the assumed supply-
side improvements could be further stretched. One member said “we have to respond
in technology terms”…”as people want to continue to fly”. This will be further expanded
upon in considering an additional scenario conceived during discussions.
Not all participants were convinced of scenario methodology for exploring the future of
aviation as opposed to economic forecasting. One member commented that “you are
in danger of crystal-ball gazing”. However, the research team argued with all the
evidence suggesting GDP growth is closely aligned with CO2 emission growth, only by
either breaking this trend, or through a global recession, will global emissions be able
to be consistent with the 2°C temperature target. Alternative fuels allow this link to be
broken, leaving the link between energy consumption and GDP intact. However, with
few opportunities for alternative low-carbon aviation fuels within the timescales being
considered within this exercise, economic forecasting models can not provide the tools
necessary to explore aviation within a low-carbon economy.
Finally, scenario assumptions in relation to business travellers, implications for other
sectors and emission buy out were requested by participants to be made clearer.
Although the range envisaged by the team was considered by a consensus of all
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participants to be reasonable, an additional scenario with emission reductions in real
terms brought about through very demanding efficiency improvements was conceived
during the day. This scenario is presented in Section 7.
6.4. Brainstorming a ‘successful aviation industry’
Participants were asked to consider what they felt to be necessary for a successful
aviation industry. Following a productive start, participants became confused as to
whether or not we were talking about within, or outside of, a low-carbon EU. However,
as the discussion continued, the consensus emerged for the aviation sector to remain
successful, it needed to be sympathetic to environmental concerns.
A list of ideas generated during brainstorming has been grouped and is presented
below.
MANUFACTURING
Needs a “fantastic effort on technology”
Higher technology innovation
Manufacturers must “make the biggest improvements possible”
Can’t dismiss environmental considerations – have to make trade-offs: noise versus NOx versus CO2.
Military technology needs to be transferred to the civil sector
Sustainable alternative fuels
OPERATIONS
Optimum trajectories – Single EU Skies Systemisation; automatic decision making; breakdown of
national boundaries; should be win-win opportunities
Deregulation is required since nationally protected airlines do not deliver efficiency
AIRLINES
Pressure manufacturers to meet the environmental needs of airlines
Low fuel prices
IMAGE
Favourable public image: “sector needs to be seen to be playing its full role”
BUSINESS
Bottom line is to maximise profit
Spin off and technology transfer to other sectors
Global growth across the industry
A successful company
SYSTEM
Good safety record
Successfully responsive to demands placed on it by consumers and economy
Consumers devoting a large proportion of their carbon footprint to flying
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Sector must play full role in fighting climate change
Different actors have different priorities, need to be clear on priorities
The industry needs constant goal posts in the medium term – 10 years
No security concerns
GENERAL COMMENTS
Technology has already delivered carbon reductions
Globally a chronically unprofitable industry
One airlines’s emissions can rise because they are successful, while another may decline as they are
unsuccessful.
Successful airlines can put pressure manufacturers to meet their needs. In the past this focused on
noise.
Successful a managing environmental problems
Although the ambition of the industry should be to lower emissions, can the industry still be successful if
emissions rise?
Context changing rapidly, aviation conferences in 2000 often on noise, “things have moved so much”
“climate change really is a board level issue”
Agenda has moved on since 2000 – previously noise was the dominant issue
6.5. Emission leakage – 2nd hand market
During discussions, the issue of the 2nd hand market for aircraft became the focus of
attention on several occasions. Newer airlines, such as low-cost ‘volume’ carriers, tend
to prefer to run new and hence more efficient fleets of aircraft. The concern then is for
the 2nd hand, less efficient planes, simply being transferred elsewhere, with slow
overall improvement in fleet efficiency. With a high growth in aviation, particularly in
industrialising nations, logic would suggest rather than the entire world fleet remaining
the same size, with the oldest, least efficient planes being scrapped when new planes
are purchased in the industrialised world, instead, the entire fleet is growing. Are
improvements in global fleet efficiency likely to be slow? Are old aircraft being regularly
flown in industrialising nations? It was argued by some participants such concerns
were “red herrings” for the following reasons:
Operations of low-cost carriers are somewhat different to the legacy carriers in
terms of the number of cycles each aircraft will complete within a day.
Therefore, the ‘lifetime’ of the aircraft should be measured in terms of cycles
rather than in years.
Many aircraft are now worth more as spare parts than they are as old inefficient
aircraft, therefore likely to be used less as passenger aircraft in the later years
The oldest aircraft are used much less often than modern aircraft
Regulation preventing some aircraft from landing within the EU has forced the
industry to invest in new technology more quickly. Furthermore, airlines within
some industrialising nations may have newer aircraft to benefit from being
allowed to fly within the EU and North America and gain from their markets.
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The points presented by the industry raise an interesting issue requiring further
research. If newer low-cost airlines use their aircraft more intensively, then after only a
few years, they may have the equivalent ‘age’ of an aircraft that, in terms of years, is
twice as old. When they are sold on to the 2nd hand market, they will be being replaced
by brand-new, more efficient aircraft. This puts pressure on the manufacturers to
produce more aircraft more frequently than previously. As time goes on, the entire
fleet, including the 2nd hand market, will include much newer technology than under the
old regime. Even if the entire fleet is growing, with the old aircraft remaining in use, this
faster rate of influx of new aircraft will impact on the global fleet efficiency more
positively than previously. This may imply that the oldest aircraft lose most of their
value, and are scrapped more quickly than previously. This cycle could drive
innovation and business within manufacturing, and reduce the CO2 per passenger-km
quicker than in the past. It also implies that the standard ‘lifetime’ of an aircraft may
become much reduced, from around 30-40 years, to 20-30 for example. However, one
concern is that although new carbon composite materials are quicker to assemble,
they are less easy to recycle for spare parts.
Whether or not the above argument is value depends very much on the use of the
oldest planes in the system. Parallels can be drawn with the second-hand car market,
where individuals tend to replace vehicles more and more frequently, hence creating a
very buoyant second-hand carbon market. The longer second-hand vehicles remain in
use, the slower the overall fleet efficiency will improve. Therefore, would driving a
second-hand aircraft market in fact induce a reduction in the overall rate of
improvement in terms of fleet fuel efficiency?
One participant commented that an MOT for aircraft to assess its overall efficiency
would benefit the aviation industry’s emissions profile.
6.6. Consumer interview presentation
The presentation on the consumer interviews outlined the methodology and theoretical
framework for understanding individual and group motivations for flying. It then went on
to pick out key responses, which are also described in Section 5. This approach for
analysing the growth in aviation was generally unfamiliar to the participants. One
participant indicated they found the idea of in-depth interviews with a selected group as
opposed to mass-surveying a difficult concept to grasp. A number of key areas of
discussion are highlighted below:
Motivation for talking to “frequent flyers”
One participant argued frequent flyers are a small sub-set of the population. 70% of
the population only fly once a year. Most people only fly once in their lifetimes with a
particular low-cost airline, 30% use that airline more than once, and 5% take 30% of
flights. They therefore suggested a misunderstanding of the method employed to
undertake the research. In fact, a frequent flyer” was considered to be an individual
who had flown more than once in the previous 12 months. They were not chosen as
individuals who flew many times a year, although this was often found to be the case.
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“This is nothing new!”
One participant suggested people have always behaved in the way recounted within
the interviews – visiting friends and relatives, getting together to celebrate en masse,
exploring new areas; but that now airlines have created a practical option, producing a
different world for people with the same desires.
It was argued there is a considerable amount of ‘newness’ in the activities observed.
Firstly, the scale of activity is entirely new. It is true that people used to visit relatives in
the past, but those relatives now live abroad, and expect to receive and return regular
visits. Furthermore, different groups of individuals now choose to fly, such as the
elderly.
Time budgets
Discussion around scheduling the year led to a comment suggesting if people fly a lot
for work, then they may not fly as much for leisure. The link between business and
leisure flying was discussed as many participants had anecdotal responses. It was
suggested firms are cutting back on allowing people to fly for business and gone are
the days when workers are able to take their partners with them.
6.7. Industry interview presentation
For scheduling and discussion reasons, the industry feedback interview was not given
as a presentation. However, some discussion did take place in response to direct
questions from the team. Questions related in the main to business resilience,
diversification, mergers and acquisitions.
Although some participants recognised the benefit of new technology transferring to
and from other sectors, there didn’t appear to be much in the way of enthusiasm for
diversifying into other transport modes to address the emissions issues. It was
commented although some airlines have links to train companies, there is no incentive
within the UK to integrate the modes. Companies who are good at running airlines will
not necessarily be good at running trains, and vice-versa. The UK was not considered
by participants to be a good place to study mixed-mode transport.
Discussions over mergers and acquisitions led to comments on the dynamism of the
industry – with 35 airlines set up last year and 28 failing. “Better to let failing airlines go
bust that to take them over”. Slots were considered to be more important than the
airlines themselves, as they are immovable assets.
One very interesting comment related to the current absence of regulation encouraging
airlines to pool customers to reduce the number of aircraft flying. “If you can get people
on 2 planes rather than 3, then this is better”. Clearly, this would have significant
environmental benefits.
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6.8. Workshop summary
The workshop was judged to be a success by the research team on a number of
levels. Firstly, there was good representation at the workshop from those interviewed,
and where individuals from particular organisations could not attend, in most cases,
substitutes were present. Secondly, the round-table discussions required little
encouragement. All participants made significant contributions, with no single
individual either wholly dominant or entirely silent. Thirdly, for a number of reasons, the
workshop ran over time. However, all participants remained until the core elements of
the workshop were completed – around 40 minutes after the scheduled meeting end.,
thus indicating a high level of interest and engagement. Finally, although there has
been concern in the past about how some of Tyndall’s research has, according to
some, focussed unduly on the aviation sector, the team felt little animosity from the
participants. Rather, the team observed good dialogue, and arguably the process itself
led to mutual learning and a better understanding of the concerns of both the industry,
and those engaged in addressing the climate change issue.
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7. Scenarios
Scenarios are images of potential futures providing a framework to enable a range of
stakeholders to think about the future and the processes that may shape it. The
strength of a scenario lies in the limitless variety of driving forces it can be used to
explore. Thus a scenario developer can articulate the implications of factors such as
technology developments, societal changes, policy implementation or environmental
change. The assumptions that can be included are not limited to quantifiable
parameters, but instead scenarios allow qualitative and quantitative information to be
blended together, bringing to life a set of assumptions to explore their future impact.
Scenarios are not predictions, but instead allow the exploration of the possibility space
through the articulation of a set of ‘what if’s’. Ultimately, scenarios can be considered
‘learning machines’ through which understanding of future diversity can be increased.
The conceptual framework underpinning the project (which is outlined in Appendix X)
starts from the premise that the aviation system is a complex system, and as such its
behaviour is not easily predictable. This complexity makes a scenario approach a
powerful means of exploring the future of aviation, given it allows the diverse drivers
influencing the system to be explored in a multi-dimensional way. Furthermore,
scenarios can be used to explore desirable versus non-desirable futures, enabling
policymakers to attempt to proactively shape the future. This is of particular importance
when considering the radical change in current energy consumption and carbon
emission trends required, if the UK and EU’s 2°C target is to remain a climate goal.
Current forecasting techniques may be useful in considering incremental change, but
they have severe limitations when attempting to predict futures wholly different from
current trends. An illustration of the scale of the task faced is presented in Figure 3.
Even if global emissions were to begin to reduce from tomorrow, a 55% global
reduction emission by 2050 would be required to give a reasonable chance of not
exceeding the 2°C threshold. According to the data presented in Figure 3, modifying
the current trend to more moderate growth rate is likely to be extremely challenging,
reversing it requires a sea change in thinking, policies and governance on a global
scale. The higher the emissions rise, the more quickly and severely they will need to
be reduced in the future due to the significance of cumulative emissions as discussed
in Section 2. A desirable future, in climate terms, can be explored through scenario
analysis and visioning but can not be predicted or forecasted using conventional tools.
Moreover, scenario analysis offers opportunities to uncover possible levers for change,
enabling policy and decision makers to incrementally driver and push in a direction
aligned with avoiding ‘dangerous climate change’. Each sector’s role within the overall
picture, although individually a small proportion of the answer, will equally benefit by
applying this type of technique.
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Figure 3: Global CO2 emissions from 1750-2004 measured in million tonnes of Carbon
7.1. Scenario development
Based on the outcomes of the consumer and industry interviews, the project team
initially developed four alternative visions for the future of the aviation industry. In
addition, a fifth scenario was conceived during the workshop to represent a more
ambitious future for aviation in terms of fuel efficiency and carbon intensity
improvements envisaged. One motivation for producing the more ambitious scenario
can be summarised by the comment “it is useful is to get the industry to think about it
as a possibility”. The initial four scenarios have been modified to reflect individual
comments during the workshop, with the fifth presented here for the first time.
Given the international nature of the industry, the scenarios are based on current EU
data, influenced by current UK and EU political and regulatory drivers, but set within a
wider international context. In other words, the aviation emissions considered include
those generated by approximately 50% of all departures and arrivals from all EU
nations. The emissions profiles include the range aviation activity: leisure, business
and freight. All of the scenarios take as a given the sector must make efforts to curb or
ultimately reduce CO2 emissions from aviation and explore opportunities for emission
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mitigation across the aviation system. In doing so, growth rates in terms of passenger-
km and improvements in fuel efficiency and carbon efficiency are considered in
percentage terms. Qualitative explanations focused around the key actors provide
more depth and colour to illustrate the scenarios, and provide an additional lever to
engage the stakeholders.
In terms of the wider context, the scenarios assume emissions to be in line with a
450ppmv future throughout the rest of Europe. That is to say, emissions from all other
EU sectors are reducing rapidly from around 2010 onwards. However, this reduction is
not necessarily being brought about by a successful EU ETS. The reductions may be
being delivered through a number of coherent policies addressing emissions such as,
for example, a strict regulatory framework, carbon rationing schemes or a variety of
fiscal measures. It is not assumed that the EU is undergoing a recession.
7.2. Scenario descriptions
Simply speaking, the scenarios consider five drivers that may impact on the growth
rates, technology roll-out and operational management of the aviation system:
• Open Skies agreement
• EU ETS
• Regional economic development plans
• Local/grass routes constraints on development
• Technology development
Using a matrix, the impact of the drivers upon passenger-kms, fuel efficiency, carbon
intensity and the five industry actors previously outlined was mapped out. This
approach allowed the project team to define the boundaries of the possibility space.
From the large number of initial scenarios, four were selected in the first instance
offering the potential for different climate change outcomes, and encompassing a wide
spectrum of issues that emerged from the interviews. This initial selection was based
on the judgement of the project team in relation to what could be considered
challenging and interesting to explore in a scenario format. Although the team was
aware it was unlikely all the scenarios would have universal appeal, each offered the
opportunity to think creatively about the future. The remainder of Section 7 describes
the scenarios that formed the basis of the afternoon’s discussions in the workshop. In
addition, the fifth scenario, conceived of during the workshop, is described here for the
first time. The scenarios are illustrated graphically, according to the key shown in Table
3.
The scenarios have been given the following neutral descriptors: Blueberry, Apple,
Blackcurrant, Strawberry and Orange. The idea of neutral descriptors is to ensure no
bias due to naming when considering the scenarios for the first time.
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Passengers
Air traffic control
Airports
Airlines
Manufacturers
Scenario driver
Actor response
Table 3: Key to scenarios
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Consumption-production systems in aviation
Blueberry scenario
The overall characteristic of this scenario is continued globalisation with moderate climate change drivers. Growth in
aviation remains strong across all categories of flight throughout the period. Recent historical rates of improvement in
Scenario
characteristics
fleet fuel efficiency are maintained, improving post 2025. There are only minor improvements in carbon intensity.
Cumulative emissions are higher than had emissions remained stable at 2005 levels.
The price of carbon under the EU ETS is not high enough to have a significant impact on ticket price, or drive
technology innovation. The primary driver for the latter is the power of ‘volume’ carriers keen to reduce their costs by
reducing fuel consumption per passenger-km. Whilst ‘volume’ carriers are investing in newer, more efficient planes,
particularly to fly the longer distances required by medium and long haul routes, slow replacement rates are maintained
across the fleet globally. Although some networked carriers are investing in biofuel production to capture a niche green
market, the EU ETS is not sufficient a driver to support penetration across any significant part of the fleet in this highly
mobile society.
Aviation is an important driver of regional economic policy and results in the growth of business parks or aeropolis
surrounding regional airports.
Under this scenario, the following changes in growth rates are seen:
• EU ETS carbon cap is loose
• High demand for aviation
• Open Skies allow development of long haul
routes from regional airports
• Regional economic • High load factors
development policy • Emergence of hybrid ‘volume’ model for long
promotes aeropolis business and medium haul
parks • Powerful ‘volume’ carriers
• High mobility within EU
• Little opposition to airport
expansion • Ticket prices remain
similar to today
• Aviation expansion in
line with Aviation
• Airports focal point for White Paper in UK
economic development
• Airport expansion in line with
Aviation White Paper
• Demand for flying remains high
• Work with industry to increase
airspace capacity and reduce flying • Initial slow pace of technology
times development, increasing with
• National ATC systems similar to increasing power of ‘volume’
today carriers
• Little incentive to accelerate pace
of biofuel development
• Flourishing airline industry
• High growth in point-to-point model
• ‘Volume’ carriers keen to reduce costs • ‘Volume’ carriers keen to improve fuel
consumption and keep costs low
• EU ETS carbon cap is loose
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Today-2011 2012-2017 2018-2025 2026-2030
Per annum growth in 5% 4% 4% 3%
passenger kilometres
Per annum improvement 1% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5%
in carbon intensity
The scenario results in carbon emissions as illustrated in the schematic below. Those
in dark blue bricks are the additional cumulative emissions compared with if they had
remained constant at today’s levels. Emissions by 2030 are over three times higher
than 1990 levels and just under twice as high as 2005 levels.
Consequences for other sectors
As the carbon cap governing the EU ETS is loose, alternative mechanisms are necessary to reduce
emissions from other sectors. Only domestic emissions are covered by these alternative schemes, which
include a stringent regulatory framework for minimising energy consumption and fiscal policies to raise the
price of carbon sufficiently to impact on behaviour, efficiency and new technology across the domestic
sectors (industry, households, transport, etc.). To encourage globalisation, international emissions from
aviation and shipping are addressed only within the EU ETS, and therefore other sectors are compensating
for their growth.
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Consumption-production systems in aviation
Apple scenario
The overall characteristic of this scenario is a continuation of current technology and high growth trends, with
Scenario
characteristics
the addition of moderate climate change drivers. A number of factors combine to facilitate the continued rapid
expansion of the aviation industry, particularly through buoyant market flows between the EU and China and
India, in addition to more efficient security possessing. A continuation of current rates of improvement in fuel
efficiency combined with the strong growth in the sector results in cumulative emissions and hence climate
change impacts from aviation, far higher than if emissions had remained stable at 2005 levels.
Within a number of key EU nations, regional economic policies recognise the benefits of bringing investment
and tourism into an area and facilitate the expansion of regional and local airports. At the local level, a
strategic approach to development combined with a facilitative planning system, ensures that any local
objections are mitigated so as not to hinder development.
Historical rates of technology development are maintained, but not increased. The pace of technology
development is hindered by an absence of outside investment and a loosely constrained EU ETS cap making
it more cost effective for the industry to buy permits from other sectors rather than rolling out new technology.
Global competition for biofuels within a limited supply, severely constrains carbon intensity improvements.
• Phase 2 of Open Skies operational
• EU ETS carbon cap loose
• Contraction of charter model
• ‘volume’ model successfully applied to
medium-haul
• Continued high growth in short-haul
• Low carbon price makes buying carbon
• Regional economic credits more cost effective than emissions • Favourable business
policy drives airport reduction climate for the
expansion aviation industry
• Few local objections to
airport expansion
• Flying becomes increasingly
• Regional airports become more affordable
‘hub-like’ • Passengers travel longer distances for
• Rapid growth in smaller local business & leisure
airports • Mobile population
• Rebound effect increases demand for airspace
capacity reducing fuel efficiency gains
• Historical pace of technology
improvements
• Slow pace of biofuel development
• EU ETS carbon cap loose
• Industry focus on increasing airspace capacity
• One EU Sky implemented to increase efficiency of ATM
provision EU ETS carbon cap loose
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Today-2011 2012-2017 2018-2025 2026-2030
Per annum growth in 6% 6% 6% 5%
passenger kilometres
Per annum improvement 1% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5%
in carbon intensity
The scenario results in carbon emissions as illustrated in the schematic below. Those
in green bricks are the additional cumulative emissions compared with if they had
remained constant at today’s levels. Emissions by 2030 are over five times higher than
1990 levels and just under three times higher than 2005 levels. Aviation is treated as a
highly privileged sector.
Global consequences
The popularity of aviation with consumers, and its role within a global economy, leads policymakers to
encourage this sector to grow and be compensated by other sectors. The low carbon price generated by a
loose EU ETS cap leads the aviation industry to buy carbon permits from other sectors of the EU economy
where the carbon abatement costs are lower. This imposes considerable pressure to decarbonise on these
other EU sectors. In addition, regulatory and fiscal measures are introduced to further reduce greenhouse
gas emissions from all other EU sectors to compensate for aviation. Emissions from international shipping,
although not within the EU’s new low-carbon framework, are reduced through a combination of efficiency and
alternative fuels, technology more easily rolled out within ships than aircraft.
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Consumption-production systems in aviation
Blackcurrant scenario
The overall characteristic of this scenario is a reduced growth rate within an EU ETS scheme operating under
a tight cap. The aviation industry continues to grow, but at a reduced rate from historical trends. There is some
market maturity in demand for short-haul flights. Increases in fuel efficiency and reductions in carbon intensity
generate cumulative emissions slightly higher than if there had been no emissions increase from 2005 levels.
Scenario
characteristics
To reduce aviation’s predicted burden under EU ETS, manufacturers invest in research and development,
resulting in an accelerated pace of technological innovation and improvements in fuel consumption as new
engine and airframe designs enter the fleet. Supply chains are expanded to ensure economies of scale as
manufactures invest heavily in new production facilities (e.g. carbon fibre). By 2030, some biofuel supplies
are secured following commercialisation of second generation biofuels. Reductions in carbon emissions thus
occur for a given journey in addition to reductions in fuel consumption through efficiency gains.
Aviation is not a strong driver of regional economic development, but regional airports are able to expand
somewhat, supported by a diversification into leisure and other commercial activities. Improvements in
alternatives for short and domestic travel, and time-consuming security procedures result in some substitution
of short-haul by medium-haul flights. This shift benefits the point-to-point market as bottom-up objections
slows airspace expansion, leading airlines to focus on medium and long-haul routes, using appropriate sized
planes to ensure the most efficient use of airspace.
• Open Skies agreements in place
• Bottom-up objections place constraints on
expansion of UK airspace
• EU-ETS with a tight cap
• Aviation not a strong • Medium haul better value
driver of regional • Airlines lead in improving fuel efficiency for time and money
economic development practices and push manufacturers • Time consuming security
• Airspace expansion • Management systems to ensure very high load • Viable short-haul and
constrained by bottom-up factors domestic alternatives
objections • Objections to airspace
expansion
• Diversification of business into
leisure and commerce for non-
flyers Substitution from short-haul to for
• Point-to-point model successful leisure medium haul
Less flights per person per year
• Working with industry to make best use
of constrained airspace • Innovation in engine and air-frame
• Developing tools and systems to reduce design
flying times for medium-haul and trans- • Global bio-fuel supply chain
Atlantic routes • Investment in production facilities –
economies of scale
• EU-ETS with a tight cap
• EU-ETS with a tight cap
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Today-2011 2012-2017 2018-2025 2026-2030
Per annum growth in 4% 3% 2% 2%
passenger kilometres
Per annum improvement 1% 1.5% 2% 2%
in carbon intensity
The scenario results in carbon emissions as illustrated in the schematic below. Those
in purple bricks are the additional cumulative emissions compared with if they had
remained constant at today’s levels. By 2030 emissions are over twice as high as in
1990 and just under 30% higher than 2005 levels.
Global consequences
The price of carbon abatement within the aviation sector is similar to that from other sectors of the economy;
hence some carbon savings are made from within the sector, in addition to those purchased from other
economic sectors. The EU ETS is the dominant mechanism within Europe for tackling emissions, although
there is still reliance on some regulatory and fiscal measures to encourage emission reduction and support
emerging low-carbon technologies. Aviation’s emissions continue to increase as it is more cost-effective
within the scheme for other sectors to make emission cuts. The EU’s leadership on the climate issue
encourages action within the other continents once the EU ETS is seen as having the desired effect. The
global 2nd generation biofuel resource becomes a rapidly growing market in the light of demand for low-
carbon transport fuels.
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Consumption-production systems in aviation
Strawberry scenario
The overall characteristic within this scenario is a requirement for cumulative emissions from 2005 onwards to
be equivalent to if emissions had remained constant at 2005 levels. A number of factors combine to put the
breaks on the expansion of the aviation industry which experiences a rapid decrease in growth rates in the
short and medium term. Improvements in energy efficiency, combined with significant penetration of low-
Scenario
characteristics
carbon fuels results in a low climate change impact from the aviation sector, with cumulative emissions
equivalent to zero growth between now and 2030.
Expansion of the aviation industry is no longer a central tenet of regional economic policy within the larger EU
nations. The unexpected high price of carbon abatement from other sectors of the economy, combined with a
strong carbon cap, results in the EU ETS having a significant impact on the aviation industry soon after it
enters the scheme in 2011. Some airlines have no alternative but to pass on the high price to passengers,
with a corresponding downturn in demand. The increase in the cost of aviation, combined with an increasing
dissatisfaction amongst those living within proximity of airports and growing awareness of climate change
Under this scenario, the a number changes in growth rates are seen:
impacts, results in an aligning of following of opposition groups. As a consequence, it is more difficult for
airports to implement expansion plans, with constrained capacity impacting on the airlines and airports alike.
In the short term, the impact of EU ETS caught the industry by surprise, and did not encourage technological
development. As the cost of compliance increased, and the Government responded to the downturn in the
aviation industry through the provision of increased funding for R&D, the pace of technology development
accelerates and high efficiency planes enter the fleet at increased rates. Keen to halt the slow down in
growth, the aviation industry focuses on the development of a global biofuel market, with high penetration of
low carbon fuels seen from 2025 onwards.
• Break down in negotiations for 2nd phase of Open Skies
• EU ETS with tight effective cap
• Bottom-up objections • EU market closed to US carriers
to airport expansion • Low growth in trans-Atlantic flights
• Expansion of aviation is • Carbon costs passed onto passengers • Seat prices increase
not a linchpin of • Higher load factors • Coalitions of campaign
regional economic • Focus shift onto quality of flight groups with different
policies objectives
• Expansion is constrained • Demand for flying reduces
• Negative impact on airports that • Bottom-up objections to
rely on ‘volume’ carriers expansion as flying is seen as
being for the privileged
• Accelerated pace of
• Work with industry to reduce flying technology development in
times and fuel consumption the medium term
• Implementation of One European Sky to
reduce costs
• EU ETS tight effective cap
• EU ETS tight effective cap
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Today-2011 2012-2017 2018-2025 2026-2030
Per annum growth in 3% 2% 1.5% 1%
passenger kilometres
Per annum improvement 1.5% 2.5% 2.5% 3%
in carbon intensity
The scenario results in carbon emissions as illustrated in the schematic below. Those
in red bricks are the additional cumulative emissions compared with if they had
remained constant at today’s levels. Those in solid red represent the reduction in
cumulative emissions in the medium-term. The red bricked area emissions are equal to
the solid red area. By 2030 emissions are 60% higher than in 1990 but around 10%
lower than 2005 levels.
Global consequences
The EU takes a global leadership position on EU ETS, but at some loss of competitive global position due to
slow growth in aviation industry. Pressure on the other sectors to reduce their emissions as a consequence of
aviation emissions growth is moderate compared with other scenarios. Due to the success of the EU ETS in
curbing emissions from those sectors where abatement costs are lowest, fewer additional regulations or fiscal
measurements are required.
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Consumption-production systems in aviation
Orange scenario
The overall characteristic within this scenario is a very strong drive towards technology and efficiency
improvements alongside continued growth trends. This strong additional drive coupled with a tight EU ETS
emission cap results in cumulative emissions somewhat lower than if they had remained constant from 2005.
The aviation industry continues to grow, but at a reduced rate from historical trends. There is some market
Scenario
characteristics
maturity in demand for short-haul flights.
Regional and large-hub airport expansion continues at moderate rates under strict new EU regulations
ensuring maximum possible improvements in technology aimed at minimisng emissions on the ground.
Furthermore, new MOT-equivalent legislation combined with incentives to manufacturers from governments to
drive the global fleet fuel-efficiency pushes new technology through the system at far higher rates than those
experience in the 1980s and 90s. As the EU ETS cap is tightened year-on-year, the industry begins to see the
benefits of significantly reducing emissions per passenger km by the mid-2020s, with additional costs passed
onto passengers in only a minority of cases. The accelerated technology driver gives aviation a lead role in
Under this scenario, the biofuels, which penetrate the system significantly in
the development of 2nd generationfollowing changes in growth rates are seen:the 2020s.
Innovation in technology is not restricted to aircraft and airports. Financial incentives encouraging partnerships
between airlines to be more flexible in managing demand for flights allows for an additional rise in load factors,
and further improves the efficiency of air traffic control and management..
• Rapid implementation of 2nd phase of Open Skies
• Tightly capped EU ETS scheme
• Stringent emission regulations & significant economic
incentives specifically focussed on technology RD&D
• Aircraft MOT in place
• Seat prices increase
• Expansion of airports supported • Airline alliances combine to set
if technology regulations met variable timetables
• Most efficient airlines have high
• Rapid increase in aircraft replacement profile
schedules based on low-cost model
• High load factors and seat capacity
• Compulsory use of plug-in low- improvements through sophisticated ticketing
carbon power (airline alliances) • Passengers prepared to be
• Airport runway/skirt redesign to • Huge pressure put on manufacturers to drive more flexible to adapt to
minimise ground emissions down emissions variable timetables
• Seat prices increase
• Manufacturers dramatically
• Airline alliances encouraged to
accelerate technology
reduce air transport movements
development and roll-out
• Implementation of One European
• Aircraft forced to become
Sky reduces emissions inefficiencies
biofuel readied
• Manufacturers forced to recycle/update
• Tightly capped EU ETS MOT-failed aircraft
• Strong regulatory framework • Tightly capped EU ETS
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Today-2011 2012-2017 2018-2025 2026-2030
Per annum growth in 4% 3% 2% 2%
passenger kilometres
Per annum improvement 2% 3.5% 4% 5%
in carbon intensity
The scenario results in carbon emissions as illustrated in the schematic below. Those
in orange bricks are the additional cumulative emissions compared with if they had
remained constant at today’s levels. The shading in solid orange represent the
reduction in cumulative emissions in the medium-term. The orange shading is a larger
area than the orange bricked area, therefore this scenario has a smaller climate impact
than if emissions had remained constant at today’s levels. By 2030 emissions are 40%
higher than in 1990 but around 25% lower than 2005 levels.
Global consequences
The aviation industry within EU is a world leader in technological advances as a consequence of the strong
leadership shown in tackling climate change. Rather than disadvantaging the EU, regulations and standards
are mirrored world-wide, engendering a significant step change in aviation technology and operational
systems. Although other sectors continue to reduce their emissions by more than the aviation industry
through the EU ETS, the scheme is seen as a success in ensuring carbon abatement is occurring for least
financial burden. As a result, the EU’s economy continues to grow across all sectors.
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Consumption-production systems in aviation
8. Policy analysis: discussion
This report has presented the results of a two year research project investigating consumption-
production systems within the aviation industry, carried out by the Tyndall Centre Manchester
and Manchester Business School. The first two elements of the work focused on the aviation
industry and frequent flyers, and sought to understand the drivers for aviation growth and its
impact on climate change policy. This material was presented to policymakers, in a series of
one-to-one interviews, to gain a policy perspective on the research. Earlier sections of the
report summarise each of these elements of the research; this final section integrates each
distinct element and discusses four emergent areas of focus in the light of the evolving policy
landscape for climate change and aviation:
The special case of aviation
Aviation and the EU ETS
Demand management
Technological development
8.1 The special case of aviation
Drivers and incentives to encourage technological and operational development aligned with
climate change objectives have been hampered arguably by aviation’s particular treatment
within national climate and energy policies. Whether or not the aviation sector is a special case
and should be privileged in relation to other sectors has been debated and discussed since the
introduction of the Kyoto Protocol (UNFCCC 1997) and has been referred to on a number of
occasions throughout the empirical stages of this project. The reasons for the different
treatment of aviation will be discussed first, in relation to international regulation and its
perceived importance to the economy before moving on to consider the consequences of this
treatment for emissions and climate change mitigation policy.
International responsibility
From a climate change perspective, aviation can be considered to be different to other sectors,
because it has unique combination of barriers to mitigation in relation to: the long time-lag
associated with step-change technologies filtering through the fleet; traditionally high rates of
growth compared with average GDP; few viable options for alternative fuels in the short- to
medium-term; and very large potential for growth world-wide. Even the similarly ‘international’
shipping industry would appear to have more options in relation to mitigation (IMO 2009).
From a regulatory perspective, aviation differs as other sectors are regulated at a national
level, whereas aviation is regulated as a sector by the International Civil Aviation Organisation
(ICAO), a United Nations Specialist Agency aiming to promote the safe and efficient
development of international civil aviation. ICAO has produced a global framework of technical
standards, covering safety, security and environmental issues. Responsibility for mitigating
aviation’s contribution to climate change was thus given to ICAO within the Kyoto Protocol, but
according to the EU Commission, little meaningful progress has occurred (COMM 2005).
Within this research, ICAO was described by one policymaker as a
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“…captured regulatory body”
controlled by those countries wishing to hinder the development of a strong climate change
policy framework. This can be exemplified by the continued absence of an agreed emissions
allocation regime for international emissions. Moreover, prevarication on the grounds of action
being required at an international, as opposed to national, scale has contributed to slow
progress in developing directed policies at a national or EU scale to stimulate additional R&D,
accelerate fleet renewal or manage demand. From the UK perspective, a legacy of the
omission from Kyoto’s national allocations of international aviation is its exclusion from explicit
accounting within the UK’s Climate Change Act and medium-term carbon reduction budgets,
despite an aim to avoid breeching the 2ºC ‘dangerous climate change’ threshold.
This ‘special’ regulatory treatment could, however, have a useful consequence for climate
change in the long-run, if policies are successfully implemented internationally. In the absence
of a global cap on emissions, embodied emissions, of say goods manufactured in China but
exported to the UK, are not taken into account either in the country of production or
consumption. Whereas, the international nature of aviation regulation sets it apart from other
international industries e.g. manufacturing, that are regulated in the country of production.
Thus, if implemented internationally, aviation polices would in effect cover both the producer
and consumer. Indeed this is already being proposed to some degree by including all EU
departures and arrivals within the EU’s emissions trading scheme.
Economic importance
A strong aviation industry is perceived to bring considerable economic benefits to the economy
which further places it in a strong position in the hierarchy of sectoral pressure to reduce
emissions, a view that was clearly enshrined in the 2004 Aviation White Paper (DfT 2004b).
Recent developments in relation to the expansion of Heathrow airport again illustrate how an
economic case is made for the expansion with Mr Geoff Hoon MP stating in January 2009 that
the airport was
"critical to this country's long-term economic prosperity" (Hoon 2009).
This position was echoed by a majority of the policymakers interviewed who highlighted the
income generated by tourism and passengers transferring at UK airports, particularly
Heathrow, aviation-related employment and the importance of a local airport to regional inward
investment, as benefits that should be taken into account when developing mitigation policy.
On the subject of jobs, there was debate over whether new jobs were created or existing jobs
preserved as a consequence of aviation expansion. However, overall, the majority of industry
stakeholders and policymakers interviewed cautioned that constraining aviation would damage
the economy, directly and less tangibly through linking a strong aviation industry with national
pride.
One alternative and minority view questioned whether a regional airport was the driver of a
regional economy, or the result of it. This was expressed as a question – “which came first the
chicken or the egg?” In a similar vein, whilst the case for Heathrow’s expansion is made
though the use of economic indicators (OEF, 2006) it is possible to use identical economic
indicator data to tell a different economic story (Whitelegg 2003; SACTRA, 1999, Wood et al.,
2010). Focusing on the economic case for aviation expansion ignores other potential benefits,
or alternatively impacts, with the social and environmental realms important as well.
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Consumption-production systems in aviation
Aviation expansion and potential for emissions growth
Using the latest information in relation to UK Government aviation forecasts coupled with its
own climate change commitments, highlights clear tensions between aviation and climate
change objectives. Firstly, despite new forecasts (Figure 4) excluding the previous ‘worst’ case
forecast expecting over 100MtCO2 by 2050, all of the new forecasts illustrate the CO2 from UK
domestic and international aviation growing significantly to between 52 and 62 MtCO2 by 2050.
Figure 4: UK Government aviation forecasts for CO2 published in 2009 (DfT 2009). plus the 2003
aviation forecasts (DfT 2004a)
The previous ‘central’ forecast is also higher than the more recent ‘high’ forecast, with drivers
for a reduced overall forecast including:
Higher oil price assumptions
Revised Treasury GDP forecasts for the UK
Revised International Monetary Fund forecasts for international economic growth
Airport capacity assumptions updated in line with the latest plans by airport operators
Improvements to forecasting methodology
Climate change policy developments
Assumptions relating to meeting the ACARE targets
Despite lower Government forecasts for aviation CO2 emission growth, the DfT’s forecasts still
imply that the aviation sector will consume a significant amount, if not all, of the UK
Government’s CO2 budget by 2050. This is illustrated in Figure 5, where the UK Committee on
Climate Change’s Intended emission pathway is presented out to 2050. This pathway (in
black) achieves an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions from 1990 levels by 2050. However, if no
global deal is adopted in Copenhagen, the Government will take the ‘interim’ rather than the
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intended pathway. In this case, the cumulative emissions released on adopting a less stringent
pathway will need to be made up for in later years, hence the 80% reduction becomes an 85%
one (blue line).
This approach can be taken further to explore the implications of omitting international bunker
emissions in the first instance (as is currently the case). In the first three budgeting periods,
international bunker emissions will be excluded according to the Act, but international aviation
and shipping will in real terms be continuing to emit CO2 emissions. The Committee Report
recommends that these emissions will be included in the 80% reduction target by 2050.
Therefore, if the pathway is to have the same cumulative emissions (and hence climate
impact), it must be adjusted to allow for their exclusion in earlier years (red line). In this case,
the 80% target becomes a 95% target.4
By comparing the DfT’s aviation forecasts for CO2 emissions with the pathway, two aspects
become apparent. Firstly, by 2050, aviation will be consuming the entire emission budget, and
this doesn’t take into account the additional emissions released by aircraft. Secondly, if the
marine bunkers were included on top of those from aviation, the budget will be breeched. In
other words, without buying emissions rights from elsewhere, it is not possible to contain
growing emissions from aviation and shipping within the UK Government’s planned pathway
and therefore it is not playing its fair role in achieving the 2ºC threshold target.
Figure 5: The UK’s interim and intended budgets modified to account for the omission of
emissions in early years either from taking a less stringent pathway (interim pathway) or the
exclusion of international bunkers. The UK’s new aviation forecasts are included in the graph.
4
In this case, the additional cumulative emissions are not added from 1990-2022 but only from 2009-2022 as
arguably the Committee is not responsible for the fact that they were excluded previously, but are responsible for
the fact that they are excluded currently.
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Consumption-production systems in aviation
To justify this treatment of international bunkers, the UK Government argued that the budget
would not be exceeded because aviation (and other sectors) will buy-out a proportion of their
emissions from the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme. This is the argument made by Geoff
Hoon MP when making the case for the high capital investment in a third runway at Heathrow
in 2009 (Hoon 2009) where he stated that emissions from the aviation sector would be lower
than 2005 levels by 2050 by trading within the EU ETS. Without including the traded element,
the emissions are forecast to range between 52 and 62MtCO2 – considerably higher than 2005
levels. The EU ETS is discussed in greater detail in section 8.2 below.
In addition to the use of emissions trading to reduce the apparent emission impact of the
Heathrow expansion, an argument is also made that removing runway capacity constraints will
reduce fuel consumption through air traffic congestion improvements such as avoiding
stacking. There is a danger, however, that whilst this will enable more efficient operational
management in the short to medium-term, the UK becomes locked into high carbon facilities
that compound opportunities for decarbonisation on the scale required. Figure 5 illustrates that
without considering the potential for buy-out, the UK’s own forecasts predict the aviation sector
consuming a very large proportion of the UK’s entire budget. The rationale behind this must be
questioned in light of growing concern that already action to mitigate emissions has been too
slow to avert the very high probability that global temperature rises will be in excess of 2ºC.
In recognition of this very large potential for emission growth from the aviation sector, the UK
Committee on Climate Change issued a report on aviation in December 2009 (Committee on
Climate Change 2009), within which its scenarios restrict CO2 from aviation to 37.5MtCO2 by
2050. To comply with this restriction, efficiency gains, penetration of biofuels and capacity
constraints are combined through the use of various policy measures presenting a significant
challenge to the aviation sector and a welcome development in addressing the aviation
sector’s potential climate change impact.
8.2 Aviation and the EU ETS
The inclusion of aviation within the EU ETS is the culmination of a lengthy battle to put in place
legislation to regulate the climate-related emissions from aviation. Regulation has been
hindered when compared with other ‘national’ sectors as a consequence of its exemption from
fuel tax through the Chicago Convention. This convention prevents a tax or levy on fuel used
for international aviation, and also prevents more innovative policy measures, such as a plane
duty, from being based on any close proxy to fuel burn. Thus, due to the international nature of
aviation governance, measures to regulate or levy a fee on CO2, even at a national level are
illegal, making it one of the biggest barriers to nations and regions such as the EU developing
policy aimed at reducing the carbon emissions from international flights. Although time-
consuming to overturn, efforts to overcome this constraint would likely lead to more diverse
policy options for addressing this sector.
It has already been discussed that technical barriers, aviation’s international nature and its
importance to the economy lead aviation to be considered special compared with other sectors
of the economy, with the upshot being a stress on differential treatment at least in the short-
term. This treatment, and the lengthy and ongoing debate surrounding it has had two
consequences: firstly there have been considerable delays in the roll-out of policies engaged
with mitigating the CO2 emissions from aircraft and secondly, a strong policy focus on one
economic instrument, namely the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme
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“EU ETS has to be at the heart of policy”.
For some having the EU ETS as a central policy tool has been at the expense of other policies,
measures or regulations, as expressed by the following policymaker:
“Another problem with the ETS is that it squeezes out policy initiatives. Answer now
seems “aviation taken care of” as we have ETS”. For others, however “We are focussing on
getting aviation into ETS. Once there, suspect policy will look at how you can accelerate
industry’s response to the carbon price”.
Thus, it is hoped that the EU ETS will lead to complementary policies. However, new mitigation
policies on top of the EU ETS may be unwelcome given some within the industry suggest
aviation is already well regulated, “we are not short of regulatory pressure”. This reluctance for
additional measures was also recognised by one policymaker: “The aviation industry is happy
with EU ETS, as they know they will have to do something, and this gets policymakers off their
back for foreseeable future”. This is in contrast to other sectors such as road transport, which
is subject to complementary policies such as fuel taxes, excise duty and road tax. Similarly, the
energy industry is subject to renewable obligations, the climate change levy and energy
efficiency commitments.
If a sector is to be encouraged to grow due to its economic importance, then the associated
additional emission burden should arguably be the responsibility of the nation encouraging
such growth. However, the current position is that aviation is principally being dealt with within
the EU’s emissions trading scheme, and the possibility of an emission reduction target for UK
aviation as a sector will likely be for emissions to only become ‘lower’ than 2005 levels by 2050
(potentially through the use of trading) – a far cry from an 80% reduction imposed on other
sectors. Particularly as when it comes to the climate change impact of aviation which is, as one
policymaker put it
“…is on a different scale to other household activities.”
Whilst it is a positive step that the EU ETS legislation is proceeding, the absence of tandem
complementary policies is a concern. This is clearly illustrated in Figure 4 where the UK’s
proportion of aviation emissions by 2050 is so high. Given the scale of the challenge faced, it is
essential measures in addition to trading are put into place to incentivise and regulate this, and
other, industries. In the case of aviation, this must involve a slowing of the growth rate in CO2
in the early years, and subsequently a peak and a reduction in the medium-term. Both
incentives and regulations will be required, as the industry is unlikely to significantly mitigate its
CO2 emissions unless required to do so:
“The EU ETS is just an excuse not to deal with the root of the problem”.
Accepting this industry has peculiarities associated with it, particularly in relation to the
absence of emissions targets for non-Annex 1 nations who will be encouraging rapid growth in
aviation, new and innovative policies must start to come to the fore. The fact that the carbon
price is not sufficiently high to reduce emissions in line with 2°C climate change goal provides
support for applying the precautionary principal in favour of additional policy mechanisms.
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Summary
The role of the EU ETS is clearly important in delivering emission reductions where most
economically viable and efficient, however there are many problems in considering emission
permit purchases made through the EU ETS being equivalent to absolute emission reductions.
Firstly, there is the potential for leakage between those sectors that trade within the EU ETS
and those that are not within the scheme. Financial gains in those sectors that are net sellers
of emissions rights may choose to spend their gains within sectors that are not covered by the
EU ETS emission cap. Therefore, leakage can occur and it can not be stated that emission
reductions have in absolute terms, been made. Compounding this issue is the level of buy-out
available from the EU ETS through the Clean Development Mechanism. This mechanism
allows emissions permits to be bought within ‘developing’ nations for projects aiming for clean
development. However, these nations do not currently have a carbon cap, therefore the
emission reductions made through the CDM have similar leakage issues to those mentioned in
relation to the EU ETS. The emission buy-out potential is not insubstantial – amounting to
some 27% of the total UK emission effort over the first three budgeting periods as presented in
the UK Committee on Climate Change’s first report (Committee on Climate Change 2008).
This further highlights a need for additional complimentary policies at both a national and
international level.
8.3 Demand Management
The problem of growing aviation emissions will remain a key policy concern for some time to
come. The industry’s current focus on technological fixes, as evidenced within the scenario
workshop (Bows, et al. 2009) and discussed in section 4, may have a degree of mileage when
it comes to emission mitigation, but without sufficient incentive, is unlikely to deliver emission
reductions in absolute terms. As such, policymakers must start to consider demand
management – the Heathrow expansion is a clear example of how far removed such thinking
is from current Government policy currently. However, without this, the UK will not be on target
to fulfil its commitment to playing its fair contribution to avoiding ‘dangerous climate change’ or
deliver on the goals presented within the Committee on Climate Change’s recent aviation
report.
During the interviews with policymakers, demand management was discussed as a means of
reducing growth in aviation emissions; it was clear, however, that the term was being defined
in two ways. In the first instance, demand management was defined as reducing the rate of
growth in demand for aviation services
“..what you must do absolutely now is not expand capacity..”
or even in the most extreme case, reducing demand
“….ban all flights where alternatives exist.”
The alternative view was that demand management was the efficient management of capacity.
“Reality is that people will continue to fly, so must find all the most efficient ways of
flying as well as all possible technological solutions.”
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This latter quote highlights that for many of those interviewed, technology and operations
management had to go hand in hand. Thus, whilst the importance of technological
improvement should not be overstated, technology will only reduce emissions in the long-term
given the lead in time for new technology to diffuse through the fleet. In the short to medium-
term it is considered essential that airlines meet the demand for flying in the most efficient way
possible, with policymakers highlighting the importance of load factor for a given flight
“…its about load factors” and delays to planes en route “We could do something about
stacking over London which is a disgrace……Don’t see why you shouldn’t time planes better
so you stop them going round and round in circles wasting fuel.”
Three policy measures were specifically highlighted by those interviewed in terms of their
impact on the demand for air travel: air passenger duty, which is currently levied; the EU ETS
which is to be implemented in 2012; and capacity targets at airports which were suggested by
one interviewee. Air passenger duty has been charged since November 1994, with recent
rises angering the airline industry. A flat charge payable by every passenger on a flight was
recognised to be a crude policy instrument, but one that would curb the overall growth in the
number of people wishing to fly
“..fairly confident from past work on what APD will do for demand, elasticity is a 10%
increase in cost is about a 3.4% drop in demand.”
However, given that at present APD is charged per passenger and not per flight, it does
not act as an incentive for airlines to maximise load factors. A change to a levy per plane, as
opposed to per passenger, was proposed to
“….incentivise(s) high load factors”,
but these plans were abandoned in November 2008, in favour of increasing the number
of distance bands from two to four for the existing duty. Thus, although those flying further pay
more, the duty does not incentivise carriers to ensure their planes are full. However, increasing
the revenue per flight is the primary motivation for high load factors. The manner in which APD
was reformed, namely increasing the bands rather than a per plane tax, aimed to
"….take account of the need in the present economic circumstances, to mitigate the
potential impact on the air-freight sector, the impact on employment in this sector, and the
wider business community which relies on air-freight services; as well as mitigating the
potential regional employment and connectivity impacts." (Darling 2008).
The potential regional impacts highlighted refer to concerns from regional airlines that
their small planes flying domestically would incur the same tax as a small plane flying on an
international route.
Within a trading scheme with a strong cap, airlines will be looking to maximise revenue per
flight and will therefore have an incentive to manage demand in the most efficient manner,
ensuring both that flights are full, and also putting pressure on air traffic management (ATM) to
reduce delays in the air. Furthermore, given that the EU ETS will increase the price of a flight,
it may also act to curb the growth in the number of people wishing to fly. The EU ETS is a first
step in moving towards a low carbon economy, where the price of a service reflects its carbon
cost.
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The final mechanism, which was suggested by one of those interviewed, was a capacity target
to be imposed on an airport so that a flight would have to meet a minimum specified number of
passengers to be allowed to take-off. This measure was proposed when discussions focused
on multiple flights from different airlines, to the same destination, departing the same airport
within a short timeframe. The target would
“..disincentivise putting four planes into the air…”.
When discussed in subsequent interviews, opinion was divided as to whether such a measure
would be desirable. Thus, although two thought that
“It would be a nice world but I don’t know how you can regulate for it,”
the opposite view was the most widely held, with particular concern that measures intended to
increase load factors could, if implemented within a trading scheme, impact on the efficiency of
the system.
Overall, whilst all those policymakers interviewed recognised the need to improve the
management of existing capacity to increase efficiency, only policy measures that impacted on
the price of flying, which would either deter the public, or encourage increased load factors,
were considered appropriate, at least in the near future. The dominant discourse was on
‘encouraging’, not ‘constraining’, though in the longer term, there may be a
“..sensible place where price signals stop working”.
Managing demand for frequent flying
Given that the overall focus for the discussions with policymakers was the need to reduce the
growth in aviation emissions and mechanisms for achieving this, these discussions were
informed by the understanding of the consumer story gained from the frequent flyer interviews.
When considering the views of policymakers in relation to the consumer story, and appropriate
policy levers to tackle aviation emissions from the consumption rather than the production side,
it is interesting to remember that all of those interviewed were to a lesser or greater extent
frequent flyers themselves. Thus, for many, the results of the frequent flyer interviews
resonated with their own experiences of aviation. Overall, however, whilst all were interested
in learning about the frequent flyers, only two policymakers interviewed discussed these
aspects of the research in any degree of detail Illustrating a greater focus on what technology
can deliver, despite the barriers highlighted previously.
In addition to the upward ratchets on flying identified in the frequent flyer interviews, and
discussed in section 4.5 of this report, policymakers identified additional and more obvious
ratchets, namely the expansion of low cost airlines, and the stable period of economic growth
in the UK prior to the recent economic downturn. Considering the first ratchet, the growth in
low cost airlines was deemed to have acted as a ratchet on the flying behaviour of higher
income groups, allowing those who are better off to fly more. This tallies with the evidence
presented within the CAA report (CAA, 2006), and indeed can be seen from the frequent flyer
interviews where cheap tickets, bought online, for low cost and volume carriers enable
climbers, golfers and young professionals alike to travel overseas for numerous short and
weekend breaks in addition to their ‘main’ annual holiday. Growth in flying was also attributed
to the general success of the economy pre the credit crunch, with growth in disposable income
allowing more spare money for activities that were previously regarded as luxuries.
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The habitual nature of flying, which is now so embedded in everyday life that it has become
something that is no longer thought about, was also a strong theme to have emerged from
both policy and frequent flyer interviews. The manner in which the media treats flying was also
deemed to contribute to the normalisation of aviation. The consensus view from the
policymakers was that flying was the automatic choice for many journeys, with little
contemplation of alternative modes. This was true for all but two of those interviewed who
demonstrated detailed knowledge of rail travel within Europe and moreover had turned down
work and leisure trips where they required flying.
Provision of more information on alternative modes of transport, including carbon emissions
data to be readily available on booking of tickets was proposed to enable consumers to make
more informed choices; the aim of this being to
“…carbonise the market.”
Making this information readily available was also highlighted by frequent flyers, and would
potentially enable a number of those interviewed to explore alternatives to flying. In the future,
the EU ETS element of a ticket would also serve to communicate the carbon cost of a journey.
That said, the fact that none of those interviewed bar one had sought out information on
alternatives themselves emphasises the habitual nature of deciding to fly as opposed to the
decision being a rational evaluation of the alternative options (Randles & Mander 2009).
Some evidence did emerge from the frequent flyer interviews, and was also emphasised by
several policymakers, that there was an ‘upper limit’ on the number of flights that could be
taken, either because the experience was now viewed as becoming more unpleasant due to
increased security arrangements, or because flying excessively was something that people
tired of, as typified by this quote:
“I’ll probably do the same pattern as last year in the next few years – but feel as if I’ve
got too many (trips) – it is a pressure, all that packing, just settling down then you are away
again… I have family in Miami, otherwise I wouldn’t go… There’s a limit, last year I was out of
the country each month of the year.” [Frequent flyer, Gail].
Gail also alludes to the concept of relative commitments, in her case flights to visit her son and
his family in Miami, whose importance far outweighs their environmental impact. This was
described by one policymaker as a hierarchy of flights, with ‘love miles’ at the top of the
hierarchy. Another policymaker commented that
“..it is true that some flights are seen as precious. I’ve more sympathy for someone who
wants to visit their daughter in Australia than someone who wants to go to Nice for the
weekend.”
The idea of a hierarchy of flights was also applied to describe the availability of cheap flights to
holiday destinations in contrast to the high price of flying to outlying parts of the UK, such as
the Shetland isles.
“Great problem is too many EU flights are cheap and those that are justified are very
expensive like flying to the Shetland Isles.”
In this case hierarchy was applied to the ‘life line’ nature of the flight to Shetland.
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Summary
Discussions of policy levers focused on trying to change behaviour through voluntary means,
and the price mechanism of the EU ETS. It was generally hoped that if information on other
modes of transport, carbon emissions in particular, was provided on tickets and through the
media, consumers would decide not to fly. The interest in upper limits on flying also
emphasises that many policymakers are unwilling to tackle the thorny issue of demand
reduction head on, and instead hope that people will simply decide not to fly. Given that the
evidence from both policymakers and frequent flyers stresses that flying has become a habit
embedded in everyday life, it would seem unlikely that this habit was one which consumers
would change voluntarily. Overall, whilst policy makers were happy discussing demand
management, similarly to the aviation industry, their preferred solution to the aviation challenge
was a technology push.
8.4 Technology – optimism or pessimism?
If demand reduction is presenting limited policy levers at present with which to reduce
emissions, attention requires a refocus on the potential for technological advancement, and
timeframe for deployment. The discourse both within and outside of the aviation industry has,
over the previous decade, tended to portray incremental technology change as the only option,
demonstrating little appetite for step change and a broad acceptance that efficiency gains
made through technological development are unlikely to wholly off-set growth in passenger-
km. According to one policymaker, some manufacturers continue to be downbeat about
delivery
“Airline companies sometimes overstate what manufacturers can achieve.
Manufacturers get to a point beyond which more efficiency improvement becomes more costly.
Message I was getting was ‘don’t expect too much of us’.”
Slow incremental efficiency gains are a result of a number of contributing factors including the
slow rate of technology penetration and fleet renewal, the emergence of a buoyant second
hand market, and an industry structure where a very small number of manufacturers look to
make improvements on each other’s technology. Whilst policymakers acknowledged within
the interviews that the industry had adopted some ambitious targets5, there was also
scepticism that these technology goals would be achieved. That said, the changing structure of
the airline industry, with more competition between airlines and higher fuel costs, has led to
greater pressure being placed on manufacturers to improve fuel efficiency,
“Expect some sort of revolution (in engine configurations) prior to 2020”’ and “one
engine manufacturer has a technological breakthrough and it was the airlines that applied
pressure for this”. [airline, interview]
This industry view suggests that there may be some technologies within the aviation sector
that have an important role to play within carbon-mitigation. Whether or not this new
enthusiasm from some quarters is grounded in anything more than a desire for the industry to
be perceived as responsive to the drive towards decarbonisation continues to be of concern to
policymakers.
5
The ACARE targets aim for a 50% reduction in the carbon intensity of a new aircraft in 2020 compared with one in
2000, and an 80% reduction in NOx.
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“Airlines and airports have their heads in the sand in relation to the scale of cuts
required”.
It may be unrealistic to be optimistic that technology will reduce emissions within the
aviation sector in absolute terms, but the evidence gained during this project tends to suggest
that the manufacturers of both airframes and engines have more to offer than currently being
delivered,
“Manufacturers could do more. Realistically it is most likely to happen because of an
increase in the world oil price”.
Accelerated development and changing operational practises such as slower flying has
already occurred, primarily in response to high fuel price rises, which suggests that with
appropriate regulatory pressure or the use of economic instruments within market
mechanisms, more efficient technology could emerge more rapidly. Yet a carbon price
comparable with the peak oil price seen during 2008 is higher than prices being considered by
most policymakers.
The importance of time
Given the optimism for new technological developments coupled with the drive towards the
ACARE targets in some quarters, a useful way to consider appropriate policies is to break the
issue down to consider explicitly the technological options on offer over the short-, medium- to
long-term. In doing so, the policy debate can be directed to yield more fruitful results
specifically aligned with the cumulative emissions impact thus avoiding the discourse of long-
term emission reduction targets such as the 80% by 2050. Taking a short-term view (5 years)
could focus attention on technologies that are ‘on the shelf’ that with an additional push could
deliver new efficiency gains. Similarly, policies directed at encouraging the use of lower
carbon-intensity forms of travel, including turbo-prop aircraft for short-haul routes, could impact
on the cumulative emissions immediately. In relation to risky more medium- to long-term step-
change developments, perhaps too often it is assumed that the entire system will need to
change to accommodate them. Clearly this would be the case if the entire fleet swapped to
hydrogen fuel for example, but a commonly referred to step-change technology is that of the
blended-wing body aircraft. Given this airframe is more suited to long-haul flights than medium
or short-haul, its deployment would affect far fewer airports in terms of runway and terminal
infrastructure than a medium-range aircraft design. Therefore, policies should consider
implications of the whole system and focus on where carbon reductions would be most
effectively achieved.
The question remains, for those niches where development can be progressive or even
potentially step-change in nature, what encouragement or incentives are required, how
stringent or novel does policy need to be to deliver actual emission reductions? Academic
thinking in relation to technological transitions and innovation as illustrated for example (Geels
2006) cautions that timescales associated with large scale penetration of new technology
across a global system are too long to be reconciled with the climate change challenge faced.
Policies and innovative opportunities for varying degrees of change are both available and
numerous, although few are currently being implemented. However, to ensure policies
focusing on the technology side deliver emission reductions, they must also be sophisticated
enough to eliminate the possibility of rebound, localised take-up or leakage. One idea
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suggested by policymakers during the interviews was for legally binding efficiency standards
for aircraft landing at UK airports used to ensure that only the most efficient airlines were able
to land at popular hub airports. However, the need for clarity for manufacturers through
regulation or incentives to prioritise when trade-offs between air quality, noise and fuel
efficiency decelerate progress to alleviate the climate impact was also recognised. Ultimately,
the alignment of such policies with the current economic crisis is an opportunity the world can
not afford to miss, or as one interview put it “with a higher oil price, all options are up for
grabs”.
9. Conclusions
The legacy of aviation as an iconic industry, coupled with the inherently difficulty of regulating
across national borders means that aviation policy within the EU and the UK has focused
heavily on the EU ETS. Yet with its currently weak emission cap, the EU ETS is far removed
from what is necessary to avoid the 2°C characterisation of ‘dangerous climate change’.
Although including aviation within the scheme is a welcome step from a climate change
perspective, the potential for buy-out continues to allow the aviation industry to expand in
contrast to other more strongly regulated sectors. Of course it is desirable to allow those
sectors that can mitigate most easily to do so, and aviation is not currently such a sector.
However, the high carbon lock-in to airport and runway infrastructure brought about as a
consequence of a strong focus on one policy instrument must be addressed as a matter of
urgency.
Increased competition between airlines and high fuel prices have put pressure on
manufacturers to increase fuel efficiency demonstrating that accelerating the pace of
technology penetration is possible. This further emphasises a need not only for a
strengthening of the EU ETS cap, but moving beyond the EU ETS, towards policies that can
accelerate technology deployment, particularly focusing on appropriate mechanisms for the
short, medium and long term. Without concerted effort to avoid high carbon lock-in in the future
and to push forward with accelerated technological development, policy makers will need to
overcome the reluctance highlighted within this report to consider measures to directly reduce
demand. The analysis illustrates that policymakers will need to face up to the implicit
understanding that demand management will be required for emissions to remain within the
desired 2°C pathway.
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