After Boeing ruling, aviation needs to go cold-turkey from subsidy addiction, says NGO

That list of direct and indirect subsidies includes:

• Airlines enjoy universal exemption from fuel taxation, estimated at €20 billion a year in Europe and over €60 billion globally;

• Airlines receive an effective subsidy worth another €7 billion in Europe alone because ticket prices are artificially suppressed by about 20% due to the VAT exemption on ticket sales;

• Airlines are bailed out on a regular basis especially since the 2009 crisis;

• Already lenient state aid rules for airports have been regularly flouted; worth another estimated €3 billion a year in Europe alone;

• Manufacturers receive a €1.8 billion subsidy under the ‘Clean Sky 2’ joint technology initiative;

• Air traffic control receives a €3 billion subsidy under the SESAR ‘joint undertaking’.

Earlier this year the International Civil Aviation Organisation agreed a so-called ‘global market-based measure’ in a bid to address the runaway CO₂ emissions of aviation, the most climate-intensive of transport modes. One reason CO₂ emissions are out of control is that flying is artificially cheap because of such subsidies.