The UK’s aviation minister has promised to “act at pace” to help the UK’s aviation industry decarbonise its operations.
Baroness Vere told the ABTA Travel Matters conference in London on Wednesday (14 June) that the UK government was “not looking to cut back on people’s travel” but wanted to use the decarbonisation of the sector to allow “guilt-free travel”.
She emphasised that the UK was already a “world leader” in taking measures to make aviation more sustainable through its Jet Zero strategy, which aims to help the industry to reach its goal of becoming net zero on carbon emissions by 2050.
“We all need to work together on decarbonisation,” said Vere. “We need to make sure it's rapid and also robust. Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is the quickest and best way to decarbonise aviation in the short to medium-term as there are no airworthy hydrogen aircraft at the moment.”
She highlighted the UK’s policy to require airlines to use at least 10 per cent SAF in their fuel mix by 2030, as well as the first planned transatlantic flight by a UK airline using 100 per cent SAF, which will be carried out by Virgin Atlantic later this year.
Vere said the government also aimed to modernise the UK’s airspace to further reduce aircraft emissions, although she added that this issue was “extremely complicated” to resolve.
“In the short and medium-term we see the aviation industry moving in the right way,” she added.
The minister also said she was seeking “certainty and clarity” with the EU over its planned introduction of the new Entry-Exit System (EES), which has already been delayed to late 2023 with some media reports suggesting it will be pushed back further to summer 2024.
“We’ve not received certainty or clarity from the EU on this at the moment,” said Vere. “We’re having conversations to make sure they will welcome all of our travellers with open arms and not lengthy queues.”
Mark Tanzer, ABTA’s chief executive, also mentioned the importance of decarbonising travel during his speech to the conference.
“The target of net zero aviation is an aggressive but necessary one - much work remains to be done, but progress is being made,” he told delegates.
“The growth in aviation has been successfully decoupled from growth in aviation carbon emissions through the introduction of more modern airplanes, and the first test flights using hydrogen fuel are under way. One sustainable aviation fuel plant is up and running and a further five are due to be commissioned.
“But we really need to step up the pace of investment and the pace of airspace modernisation – to put ourselves on a crisis footing. We did it during Covid, so we know it is possible.”