Aircraft operators who will be subject to Europe’s new emissions trading scheme (ETS) beginning Jan. 1, 2012, need to start preparing now to be part of this complex process. Pre-compliance emissions monitoring will be conducted for flights in 2010 and 2011 and to be part of this phase operators need to submit a monitoring plan likely by November and have it approved by year-end.
The only exemption for commercial operators will be for those who fly an average of fewer than 243 flights over three consecutive four-month periods within European airspace (equivalent to an average of two flights per day over the course of a year, i.e. fewer than 730 flights total per year). An alternative exemption is available if an operator’s fleet generates fewer than 10,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) each year. In fact, the European Business Aviation Association is now trying to get the emissions threshold raised to 50,000 metric tons on the grounds that Eurocontrol’s Pagoda system is so reliable as a basis for calculating carbon output from each aircraft as to justify a larger margin of error.
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