SITA AIR TRANSPORT IT SUMMIT: Help for airlines in ETS planning with new SITA application

SITA has given details of its new Aircraft Emissions Manager, a software tool designed to aid Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) of the carbon emissions data required for airlines to comply with the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). The system is also adaptable should ETSs in other regions be introduced and also if, as the airline community desires, a global ETS is created.

Four airlines from the Middle East, the United States and Europe are testing the Aircraft Emissions Manager, one having been completed satisfactorily while three more are just beginning. The timing of the release will help airlines finalise their submissions to the EU detailing how they plan to monitor and report carbon dioxide emissions once the ETS becomes live for airlines. This submission has to be with the EU by 31 August this year.

Frederic Falise, head of SITA’s Environment Programme, explained that while many airlines track their fuel usage through feedback into flight planning systems, not every piece of data is used for subsequent fuel management. "With the Aircraft Emissions Manager, we get the necessary data directly from the aircraft and assemble in the form the regulator requires. And we get 100% of the data, which is one of the EU requirements. In fact, the EU will penalise heavily reports submitted with incorrect data."

At the SITA Air Transport IT Summit, the Arab Air Carriers Organization (AACO) became the first organisation to recommend adoption of the Aircraft Emissions Manager to its members when it becomes commercially available in October. The organisation also agreed on behalf of 11 AACO member airlines for SITA to supply advisory services to help manage the EU ETS challenge they face.

Abdul Wahab Teffaha, AACO secretary general, remarked, “The AACO is satisfied that the SITA solution will allow our member airlines to provide 100% accurate data on our carbon emissions to the EU so we get a fair deal under the ETS from 2012 onwards. SITA is already providing our members with consultancy services to prepare their monitoring plans which means we are assured of an end-to-end service, which is also critical for the air transport industry as a whole.

"We have also discussed with SITA what we might do with other, very different, ETSs. But yuou have to plan based on what is happening now, then adapt if others come along," added Teffaha. "But a single ETS worldwide is still the objective."

Bernie Baldwin, editor, Low-Fare & Regional Airlines/LARAnews.net
Cannes, France