Lufthansa's TAP win, EU ETS controversy, and the fallout from Saudi Arabian airport attacks

So Carrie, you were in Brussels last week and you heard from many airline leaders.

Tell us about those conferences and what was on everyone's mind.

Hi, Graeme.

Yes, I was in Brussels for two back-to-back IATA events last week.

The first was the World Sustainability Symposium, which was for two days, and then straight after that was the Wings of Change event.

I've got to say they were very well-organised conferences, lots of really interesting speakers, both on the airline and the regulatory side.

So lots of interesting discussions went on during those three days.

Let's start with the sustainability conference.

So there was a lot of discussion about the EU emissions trading system and Corsia, which is ICAO's carbon offsetting and reduction plan for international aviation.

And then also a lot of discussion on sustainable aviation fuels.

So I can kind of run through the main talking points on those issues that came out.

Starting with ETS, there was a lot of opposition voiced to the European Commission's proposals, which were made in July, to include flights to some countries outside the European Economic Area in the ETS.

More specifically, flights up to 5,000 kilometers from Frankfurt, which notably excludes the USA and China.

draw your own conclusions as to why those may have been left off anyway it provoked a lot of debate a lot of people are very unhappy that that has been proposed so during the conference i had a good interview with iata's senior vice president of sustainability and chief economist marie owens thompson now she is very unhappy with the commission's proposal she wants them to focus solely on the globally agreed corsia agreement Although it has to be said that the commission has said it would only consider expanding the ETS from 2029 if it did not see a strengthening of Corsair by then.

So perhaps this is just kind of aimed at trying to get some improvements to Corsair from their perspective.

A little rundown on Corsair, the offsetting scheme for airlines around the world, it becomes mandatory for airlines in participating countries at the beginning of 2027.

But there are concerns about a shortage of eligible emissions units.

And now those are basically the offsets that airlines buy.

So there was a lot of talk also at the conference about sustainable aviation fuel, the ongoing challenge of scaling them up to meaningful volumes.

IATA not happy again.

There's a lot of things that they're unhappy about and it was their conference.

So they got to really voice their opposition to a lot of things.

IATA is not happy with government mandates that require airlines to use a certain amount of SAF by a certain point, such as the European Commission's Refuel EU.

Now airlines, argue that it's driven up the price of SAF.

But interestingly, as well as that opposition from airlines, we also heard from two top EU regulators at the conference.

So Carrie, you were in Brussels last week and you heard from many airline leaders.

Tell us about those conferences and what was on everyone's mind.

Hi, Graeme.

Yes, I was in Brussels for two back-to-back IATA events last week.

The first was the World Sustainability Symposium, which was for two days, and then straight after that was the Wings of Change event.

I've got to say they were very well-organised conferences, lots of really interesting speakers, both on the airline and the regulatory side.

So lots of interesting discussions went on during those three days.

Let's start with the sustainability conference.

So there was a lot of discussion about the EU emissions trading system and Corsia, which is ICAO's carbon offsetting and reduction plan for international aviation.

And then also a lot of discussion on sustainable aviation fuels.

So I can kind of run through the main talking points on those issues that came out.

Starting with ETS, there was a lot of opposition voiced to the European Commission's proposals, which were made in July, to include flights to some countries outside the European Economic Area in the ETS.

More specifically, flights up to 5,000 kilometers from Frankfurt, which notably excludes the USA and China.

draw your own conclusions as to why those may have been left off anyway it provoked a lot of debate a lot of people are very unhappy that that has been proposed so during the conference i had a good interview with iata's senior vice president of sustainability and chief economist marie owens thompson now she is very unhappy with the commission's proposal she wants them to focus solely on the globally agreed corsia agreement Although it has to be said that the commission has said it would only consider expanding the ETS from 2029 if it did not see a strengthening of Corsair by then.

So perhaps this is just kind of aimed at trying to get some improvements to Corsair from their perspective.

A little rundown on Corsair, the offsetting scheme for airlines around the world, it becomes mandatory for airlines in participating countries at the beginning of 2027.

But there are concerns about a shortage of eligible emissions units.

And now those are basically the offsets that airlines buy.

So there was a lot of talk also at the conference about sustainable aviation fuel, the ongoing challenge of scaling them up to meaningful volumes.

IATA not happy again.

There's a lot of things that they're unhappy about and it was their conference.

So they got to really voice their opposition to a lot of things.

IATA is not happy with government mandates that require airlines to use a certain amount of SAF by a certain point, such as the European Commission's Refuel EU.

Now airlines, argue that it's driven up the price of SAF.

But interestingly, as well as that opposition from airlines, we also heard from two top EU regulators at the conference.