The aviation industry, which met on Tuesday 19 November at the European Civil Aeronautics Summit, is calling for standards to be simplified and for investment to improve competitiveness and comply with the Green Deal (see EUROPE 13505/22).
Klaus Schneider, Technical Director at Liebherr-Aerospace & Transportation SAS, fully reaffirmed the aviation sector’s “uncompromising” support for the Green Deal. However, he stressed the importance of competitiveness and innovation in achieving sustainability objectives. In his view, it’s a question of “finding the right balance”. Guillaume Faury, CEO of Airbus and President of the association representing the European aerospace, security and defence industries (ASD), defended the same position. In particular, he stressed the urgent need for investment. “Profitability and sustainability go hand in hand”, he said.
Mr Faury highlighted the importance of the aeronautics industry to the EU economy. “It is one of the few sectors in which the EU is a leader, and it must be protected and supported”, he said. The ASD report published the same day revealed that the sector accounted for more than one million jobs, representing 8% growth on the previous year. In 2023, sales rose by 10.1% to €290.4 billion, representing 3% growth in civil aeronautics.
Roberto Cingolani, CEO of the aerospace company Leonardo, sees hydrogen as promising, but sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), which use biomass and plastic waste, among other things, are even more so. They require massive production, and therefore an improvement in infrastructure. “The EU should be technology-neutral, because there is no silver bullet, and that gives us more possibilities”, he recommended.
For her part, Beatriz Yordi, Director of Carbon Markets and Clean Mobility at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Climate Action (DG CLIMA), stressed “the cost of climate inaction”. Citing the recent floods in Spain as an example (see EUROPE 13523/2), she pointed out that climatic disasters are harmful to the economy.
Less regulation. Mr Schneider and Mr Faury both deplored the over-regulation of recent years and called for administrative simplification. The Airbus CEO referred in particular to the ‘CSRD’ Directive on corporate sustainability reporting (see EUROPE 13522/23). “Some regulations are counter-productive and need to be corrected, because they deter investment”, he stressed.
Florian Guillermet, the newly-appointed Executive Director of the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), also spoke of administrative simplification, particularly with regard to the safety information that the aviation sector must provide to EASA. “It’s a cultural change within the Agency, and we need to harmonise with our partners”, he defended, mentioning the possibility of digitalisation. In his view, it would also improve air safety.
Read the ASD report: https://aeur.eu/f/ee2 (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)