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They say that their latest carbon figures show that they are emitting an average of 66g CO2 per passenger, per km flown. This is down from 82g ten years ago, and they have promised it will be down close to 60g per passenger by 2030. According to their figures, this compares to Lufthansa's (Europe's biggest aviation group after Ryanair) rate of 120g, and 110-119g posted by Turkish Airlines and IAG (owners of Aer Lingus and British Airways) - while budget rivals EasyJet, are at around 70-79g.
The 66g figure comes from 14.2 million passengers carried a total of 17,789m km, emitting around 1,167kt (kiloton) of carbon emissions. They point to an average family car emitting 248g/km and the EU target of 130g/km - both helping the claim that they are the cleanest airline in Europe. They point to their high load factors (seats sold) of 96%, as compared to the 80-85% rates posted by most other major airlines; and also that they have one of the youngest airline fleets in the sector (thy are all 737's with an average age of 6.5 years).
Ryanair say that they pay their environmental taxes to dispel the myth that the aviation does not pay such debts. Chief Marketing Officer, Kenny Jacobs, says, "[66g is] almost half the rate of other flag carrier European airlines..... Ryanair paid over €540m in environmental taxes in 2018 and will pay over €630m in 2019. This equates to €4.12 per passenger, which is 11% of Ryanair's average air fare."
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| New Boeing 737 MAX200 (Wikipedia) |
They are now investing $20bn in their fleet, with 210 all new Boeing 737 "gamechanger" (Max200) on order, that will replace existing 737-800 models. The new aircraft will carry 4% more passengers, whilst burning 16% less fuel, 20% less CO2 and 40% less noise emissions.
That 2% of Europe's greenhouse gas emissions come from flying, does not seem to be disputed. Aviation emissions have risen by 26.3% in the last five years in 2018 it increased by 3.9% year on year - at a time when all other industries in the Emissions Trading Scheme have dropped by 4.1%.
Jacobs says the solution is not with the airlines - "If Brussels wants to reduce CO2 by 5% in the next 12 months they just need to regulate air traffic control instead of leaving it to member states." This, they say, is because disruption caused by air traffic shortages and strikes causes aircraft to have to take longer routes, meaning they burn up to 20% more fuel.
Ryanair hits the Top Ten!
But these claims came soon after, in April, they hit the European Top Ten - for the worst emitters! This is an unwanted hit - until now, this had been the exclusive domain of coal plants. Ryanair's carbon emissions went up by 6.9% in 2018, and have in fact gone up 49% overall since 2013. Now of course, absolute emissions rates will almost always punish organisations that grow - which is why Ryanair, as most other companies, use normalised data (i.e. they divide the emissions by a normalising factor - usually turnover, but in this case in a per passenger way).
A study of small European airports by Transport & Environment, claims that the EU has effectively allowed Ryanair's carbon emissions to keep on rising, and has also subsidised many of the failing small airports across Europe. This, they say, is facilitating the rise in emissions. They say there is documented evidence that 35 such airports are receiving subsidies, and 17 deal with fewer than 500,000 passengers per year (the conservative estimate for profitability). Paris Vatry, for example, had only 108,000 passengers in 2017, and received €3m in subsidies. (Full report can be found here).
Andrew Murphy of Transport & Environment, says, "With governments struggling to rein in the sector's climate impact, the first step should be calling a halt to subsidies which are adding more fuel to the fire.... Ending state aid is a start but we also need to end aviation's tax holiday and encourage the uptake of zero emissions aviation fuels."
So - are Ryanair's claims nothing but greenwash - or are they unfairly picked on for being a healthy and expanding company? What is true, is that the whole sector, from governments and industry bodies, through to the airlines, aircraft manufacturers and airport operators, all need to play a part in this. We still fly (and more than ever) - and this trend is unlikely to be bucked anytime soon; so what else can be done across the board to remedy this major issue?
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