Frankfurt — Global passenger air traffic has clearly missed climate targets, according to a new study released on Thursday.
German airlines are among many worldwide that have largely failed to reduce kerosene consumption and thus mitigate carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions as well as other environmental damage such as that caused by condensation trails.
An airline ranking presented by the environmental organization Atmosfair at the ongoing COP29 global climate conference in Baku showed German airlines Lufthansa, Condor and TUIfly falling behind.
According to the ranking, the international passenger airlines only improved their CO2 efficiency by just under 6% in 2023 compared to 2019, the last year of normal travel before the massive disruptions of the coronavirus pandemic.
Those figures correspond to an annual reduction of roughly 1.4% annually.
However, Atmosfair argued that 4.0% reductions are needed every year to achieve the climate targets agreed in the Paris Agreement if air traffic continues to grow.
Even the climate targets of the civil aviation organization ICAO of 2% per year, which the environmental advocacy group described as insufficient, have not been achieved.
"The climate turnaround in air travel is a long time coming," said Atmosfair Managing Director Dietrich Brockhagen. "Our figures show that the sector is simply too slow when it comes to climate protection."
Absolute CO2 emissions from passenger air traffic are still around 10% lower than in 2019, mainly due to the lower volume of flights.
But the aviation industry has barely deployed any sustainably produced fuels to date.
In addition, airlines have made little progress in modernizing their fleets, even though modern engines can reduce kerosene consumption by up to 30%.
This is due to delivery problems at the two dominant commercial aircraft manufacturers, Boeing and Airbus.
The rankings reflected the age of airline fleets, with airlines that operate comparatively old aircraft falling. German flagship airline Lufthansa, for instance, tumbled from 66th place in 2019 to 97th.
German budget airline Condor, meanwhile, fell from 9th to 36th place and Tuifly from 4th to 14th place.
The most favourable efficiency values were achieved by TUIfly Netherlands and Starlux, an airline from Taiwan founded in 2018 that operates brand-new aircraft.
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