Julian Moxon/TOULOUSE
Airbus Industrie has admitted for the first time that its forecasts of air transport growth, crucial to decisions on bringing new aircraft to the market, may be seriously distorted by forthcoming environmental rulemaking.
Adam Brown, vice-president for planning and forecasting strategic planning, says proposed action by the European Commission to introduce charges for aviation pollution is "one of the threats to our forecasting and something we're watching very closely". He adds that it is "deeply disturbing to discover some of the plots being hatched in Brussels when our industry has achieved so much in reducing pollution".
The Commission has already presented plans for a new tax on aviation kerosene, condemned as "pointless" by the Association of European Airlines and is working on proposals for pollution credit trading, under which the air transport industry would have to pay for being able to continue using kerosene as other modes of transport changed to less polluting fuels.
Such measures "will have a very negative impact - the cost of travel will go up", says Brown, who has based forecasts to date on continued reduction in air fares as the industry deregulates further and the yet to be launched 550-seat A3XX enters service as planned in 2005.
He adds that Airbus and the air transport industry in general "have a huge job to do", to convince Brussels and environmental organisations such as Friends of the Earth - which recently attacked aviation's effect on the upper atmosphere - of its good environmental record.
Brown also points to the continuing failure to develop airport and air traffic control infrastructure as another "vulnerable point" in current predictions of growth.
Source: Flight International
