Ryanair is adding a €0.25 levy onto bookings made from next Tuesday (17 January) to cover the costs of the EU’s new Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), the airline said today.
According to Ryanair, the airline will have an ETS bill of between €15m and €20m this year. To offset this, passengers will pay a surcharge of €0.25 per one-way booking.
“Ryanair does not believe that European aviation should be included in the ETS scheme since it accounts for less than 2pc of the EU’s CO2 emissions,” said Stephen McNamara, Ryanair’s head of communications.
“This latest EU stealth tax will damage traffic, tourism, European competiveness and jobs at a time when no other economic block is including aviation in their ETS schemes.
“This new ETS tax is the latest in a long line of cost increases imposed on Europe’s air passengers by the European Union, which reduces the competitiveness of EU air transport with yet another misguided ‘environmental’ tax which does nothing for the environment but penalises EU consumers and families.”
The airline said it will pay lower ETS costs than other EU airlines as it is “Europe’s greenest, cleanest, airline (confirmed by Brighter Planet 2011 report) which enjoys lower ETS costs than high fare European flag carrier airlines who operate older, noisier, more polluting aircraft”.