Gulf-based airlines have joined others from around the world in demanding a rethink to the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme.
The Arab Air Carriers Organisation called on the EU to redirect its efforts on the environmental issue through the International Civil Aviation Organisation to find a global solution and relinquish its unilateral application of the ETS.
The AACO said the EU’s attempts to impose its own policies on other states will only lead to “conflicts and trade wars which will not help the environment, the customer nor will it help the airlines”.
The organisation any solution to environmental issues should be global arrived at under the auspices of ICAO, United Nations agency concerned with the matter.
Qatar Airways chief executive Akbar Al Baker, who hosted members at the meeting in Doha, described the ETS was one of the most controversial subjects facing the global aviation industry today.
“There has to be a systematic approach to the implementation of any such scheme and, like many airlines around the world, we feel the European Union needed to take a step-by-step consultative approach before imposing programmes and penalising an aviation industry that plays a crucial role in driving economies,” he said.