BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Ryanair, Easyjet and other low-cost airlines have written to the European Union asking that its plan to force carriers to use a certain share of sustainable fuels apply to all flights, not just short-haul ones.
The European Commission is drawing up targets for airlines to use a minimum share of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), to curb the sector’s planet-warming CO2 emissions. In December Brussels shelved a draft 5% target for 2030 for being too low.
A group of budget airlines, which do not compete in long-haul markets, and environmental groups wrote to the Commission on Wednesday, asking that any SAF quotas apply not only to flights inside Europe, but also long-haul trips to and from the continent.
“Excluding long-haul flights from the SAFs mandate would mean the very area of our sector that most needs to decarbonise would not be covered at all by this…