Abta chief Mark Tanzer has called for the industry to be “put on a crisis footing” in addressing climate change and demanded “more urgency” from the government in building post-Brexit bridges with the EU.
Tanzer highlighted “the challenge of climate change and decarbonisation” when he addressed Abta’s Travel Matters conference in London on Wednesday, arguing: “We need to see sustainability as absolutely critical and we need to go faster.”
He warned: “I fear if we don’t, we’ll start to see governments putting taxes on travel, making holidays more expensive or customers saying, ‘This is a bad thing to do’. We don’t want either.”
Tanzer described the target of net zero flying as “aggressive but necessary”, noting: “The first test flights using hydrogen fuel are underway. One sustainable aviation fuel plant is up and running and a further five are to be commissioned.”
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But he said: “We need to step up the pace of investment, to put ourselves on a crisis footing. We did it during Covid, so we know it’s possible.”
He stressed “the important role” of travel and transport “in whatever the economic and industrial plan to get our economy moving” and said: “Government and industry need to work together, putting the debate about Brexit behind us and building new bridges to the EU and beyond.”
Tanzer noted “collaboration is underway”, but he said: “More urgency needs to be injected.
“I’m pleased the Retained EU Law Bill has been amended to remove the ‘sunset clause’ under which all EU-derived secondary legislation would have fallen away at the end of this year.
“I welcome the fact the government has accepted this deadline would have been unhelpful. The additional time will enable government and industry to work together to identify where opportunities exist for sensible deregulation.
“We can now focus our efforts on the industry’s strategic priorities.”
Tanzer suggested some in the industry look to “every relationship with government as adversarial”, saying: “It’s not really like that. The point is to try to work together.
“We’ve worked long-term with the government. We have a lot of expertise. We’re a repository of knowledge and we have relationships of trust. It’s import for us we keep those relationships.”
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