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Ryanair emissions to rise despite per passenger CO2 cuts

The scale of the challenge facing the travel sector on climate change was laid bare by Ryanair this week as industry bosses joined world leaders in pledging to tackle climate change.

As the COP26 conference began in Glasgow this week, the low-cost giant vowed to cut CO2 emissions by 10% per passenger-kilometre by 2030 as it reported results for the six months to September. Yet at the same time, chief executive Michael O’Leary revealed: “We’ve significantly stepped up our projected growth.

“Our growth is going to be faster and more aggressive, up to 225 million passengers by 2026.”

Ryanair previously forecast it would carry 200 million by 2026, up from 149 million in 2019.

On a call to analysts, O’Leary claimed: “This will be done in an environmentally sustainable manner. Ryanair has shown we can grow while reducing our impact on the environment.”

But if Ryanair does carry 50% more passengers by mid-decade than in 2019, its total emissions would increase 36% even if emissions per passenger fell by 10% by 2026 rather than 2030.

O’Leary insisted: “Every passenger that switches to Ryanair from legacy airlines reduces their CO₂ emissions by up to 50% per flight. We’re investing over $20 billion in a new fleet of Boeing 737 [MAX] ‘game changer’ aircraft that allow us to carry 4% more passengers but with 16% lower fuel burn.”

However, World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) president and chief executive Julia Simpson argued sustainability should not be a “competitive issue”.

Speaking at World Travel Market, where climate and sustainability dominated discussion, Simpson said: “Travel and tourism includes industries which haven’t got easy pathways to net zero. We have to stop making it ‘My plane is greener than your plane’. That doesn’t help the industry.”

She argued the aviation sector had invested significantly in more-efficient technology but required assistance, saying: “Governments have given a lot of support to electric vehicles, but no support to aviation.”

Industry players announced a series of initiatives to coincide with Cop26.

Virgin Atlantic, Air France-KLM and Delta Air Lines joined the Boston Consulting Group in announcing the formation of an Aviation Climate Taskforce to accelerate development of technologies to decarbonise flying.

Royal Caribbean Group outlined plans to develop sustainability goals validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) over the next two years and reach ‘net zero’ emissions by 2050. Chairman and chief executive Richard Fain said: “Our vision is to realise carbon-free cruising over the next two decades.”

The UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) was due to join the WTTC, Intrepid, VisitScotland and more than 150 industry signatories at Cop26 in launching the ‘Glasgow Declaration’ “aimed at aligning the tourism sector behind a single, overarching goal of halving emissions by 2030 and achieving net zero by 2050 at the latest”.

Yet in a sign of the pressure on the industry to do more, the government’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance issued a joint statement with 38 fellow scientific advisers urging “rapid, urgent and sustained action” to decarbonise and in an interview said: “We’ll all need to think about our flying habits.”

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