European aviation sector faces costly road to decarbonisation

Europe’s aviation industry is calling for more support from the European Commission after a report published this week set the cost of decarbonising the sector at €500 billion more than previous estimates.

The additional cost of reaching net zero emissions by 2050 compared to a business-as-usual scenario has risen from €820 billion to €1.3 trillion, according to the revised Destination 2050 roadmap, commissioned by a coalition of aviation trade associations*.

The report shows that the industry has a “clear and actionable pathway to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050,” the groups said in a statement, but more support is needed to simplify regulations and support investments in research and infrastructure. They urge the Commission to bring forward a dedicated industrial strategy for aviation this year, centred on decarbonisation and competitiveness.

The original roadmap was published in 2021, followed by a second report on the cost of the green transition in 2023. The large increase in estimated costs since then is largely explained by the rising price of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).

Produced from renewable or waste materials, SAF still releases CO2 into the atmosphere, but its environmental impact is much lower than kerosene, and it is compatible with existing aircraft and airport infrastructure.

However, SAF represented just 0.5% of global jet fuel use in 2024, and it is currently 3-10 times more expensive than conventional fuel.

SAF is now thought to be the most important factor in aviation reaching net zero. It is expected to provide 36% of the necessary emissions reductions by 2050, according to the revised roadmap from the Netherlands Aerospace Centre and SEO Amsterdam Economics.

Meanwhile, the contribution of hydrogen-powered aircraft and the switch to hydrogen as a fuel has been revised down from 20% to just 6%, due to a lower market share than anticipated. As a result, the expected contribution from improvements in aircraft and engine technology has dropped from 37% to 24%.

As part of the Green Deal legislation, the EU adopted the ReFuelEU Aviation regulation, which states that the share of SAF blended into conventional aviation fuel at EU airports must be at least 70% by 2050. This now needs to reach 80%, according to the report’s authors.

“There will be a demand for SAF,” said Ourania Georgoutsakou, managing director of Airlines for Europe. That’s good news for those investing in alternative fuels, but cost remains one of the main barriers to uptake, she said. “We need to act now in Europe. We need to accelerate the availability of affordable SAF.”

Research funding

In a series of recommendations published with the updated roadmap, the trade associations call on the Commission to launch an aviation industrial strategy as part of the upcoming Clean Industrial Deal. Any strategy should include support to de-risk SAF production, and should extend measures which help airlines to bridge the price gap between kerosene and SAF, they say.

They also want to see more dedicated research funding for civil aviation in FP10, the successor to Horizon Europe, while ensuring the SESAR 3 and Clean Aviation joint undertakings are maintained as separate partnerships.

There are fears that SESAR 3, which supports the development of digital air traffic management systems, and Clean Aviation, focused on aircraft technology, could be merged as the Commission looks to streamline the partnership landscape.

The associations further call for a larger role for the European Investment Bank in providing funding for aviation decarbonisation, and for a greater share of revenues from the Emissions Trading System to be channelled towards the research, development and deployment of clean technologies.

The EU set up the €40 billion Innovation Fund to support low-carbon technologies using Emissions Trading System revenues, but the companies want funding to be earmarked for hard-to-abate sectors including aviation, and for administrative procedures to be simplified.

There is no single technology that will bring about sustainable air travel. Clean Aviation is now focused on the integration and demonstration of technologies around four aircraft concepts, powered either by SAF or by hydrogen, combined with electric hybridisation. Sustainability is expected to come not only from replacing fossil fuels, but also from research and development to design more efficient wings and reduce weight.

In addition to this work, the associations urge the EU to step up support for R&D in other fields which are relevant to aerospace companies, including substitutes for critical raw materials, innovative advanced materials, and capturing CO2 from the atmosphere and using it to produce SAF.

They are also pushing for more funding for the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), which has an important role to play in testing and certifying new technologies.

“Today the agency is already quite stretched,” said Vincent De Vroey, civil aviation director at the Aerospace, Security, and Defence Industries Association of Europe. “We hope that EASA will be recognised as a special agency for which you cannot just cut the budget, because if you cut the budget of EASA, there will be delays to industrial projects, and that’s not going to help decarbonisation.”

*The Destination 2050 coalition is comprised of the Aerospace, Security, and Defence Industries Association of Europe; Airlines for Europe; European Regions Airline Association; ACI Europe representing airports; and CANSO representing the air traffic management industry.