European Aviation Environmental Report 2022

European Aviation Environmental Report 2022

The third edition of the European Aviation Environmental Report (EAER) demonstrates that the aviation sector has taken steps to address its impacts on the environment and climate, but projected growth in demand calls for greater and more decisive action aligned with the European Union’s climate and environmental goals. The report offers an overview of the current environmental performance of the sector.

It looks at the historic and future scenarios of air traffic and its associated noise and emissions. It also summarises the latest scientific understanding of these impacts before focusing on five main impact mitigation areas (Technology and Design; Sustainable Aviation Fuels; Air Traffic Management - Operations; Airports and Market-Based Measures) and comes with recommendations on reducing climate change, noise and air quality impacts from aviation and accelerating action to adapt the sector to the impacts of climate change.

While the number of flights at EU27+EFTA airports dropped dramatically from 9.3 million in 2019, to respectively 4.12 and 5.07 in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic, longer-term trends show that the region will be home to some 12.2 million annual flights by 2050, with aircraft CO2 emissions potentially rising to 188 million tonnes, unless environmental protection is further mainstreamed across the sector. Recognising the multiple European and industry goals that have been established over the last three years, the report highlights the need to independently monitor progress to ensure transparency, accountability, credibility and ultimately establish trust that the measures in place will meet the agreed targets.

The EUROCONTROL contribution involved integrating the latest EUROCONTROL Aviation Outlook forecast to 2050 into the chapter ''Overview of Aviation Sector'', while using our suite of modelling tools to estimate noise and emissions impacts together with emissions forecasts based on the future outlook. The ATM and operations chapter details the latest trends from the PRU performance scheme, the European CCO / CDO performance dashboard and introduces the new Network Manager (NM) fuel efficiency indicator. The Aviation Environmental Impacts chapter also highlights recommendations on adapting the sector to the impacts of climate change, elaborated by the EUROCONTROL climate change risks study.

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European Aviation Environmental Report 2022