Reaching the tipping point?

There is not much doubt that aviation, like hotels, is enjoying a boom time.

At the end of last month, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) released figures to show that passenger demand rose by nearly 7% in the first three months of 2007 compared with the same period in 2006.

In the Middle East, the year on year increase was 20.4% while in Africa it was 11.9%, in Europe 8.2%, Asia 6.9% and North America 5%.

More dramatic figures have now come from OAG, the aviation industry analysts. According to their quarterly statistics, aviation growth has “hit an all time high.”

World airlines are offering 114,000 more flights and 17.7m more seats than they did a year ago. Of that 17.7m, 12m are in low cost carriers.

For this month alone, 2.51m flights are scheduled, a rise of 5% compared to May 2006. The figure is the highest ever, topping the 2.49m in August 2006.

There was a 7% rise in flights in and out of Europe and a 5% rise in flights within the continent.

The transatlantic market showed one of the highest growth rates with traffic on major routes up 6% or 1,400 more flights and 420,000 more seats per month. This is before the EU-US Open skies deal, which is expected to increase traffic, starts next March.

Airline after airline is reporting profits, some of a record nature. Delta Air Lines emerged this month from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection having turned a record loss in 2005 to a modest profit this year.

The UK carrier bmi last week announced a 197% increase in pre-tax profits for 2006 to £29.7m and a 4.2% rise in turnover to £905.4m.

What is remarkable is that parallel with this increase in aviation over the past two year has been a campaign to raise awareness, at the very least, and to persuade, preferably, corporates to reduce the carbon emissions for which the travel industry is responsible.

Not all of this travel is for business – leisure’s share of this market is greater. Nor are planes responsible for all carbon emissions. Their share is, currently, around 2-3%. Cars and heavy industry are far bigger culprits.

But with heavy weight organisations like the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) making green issues a major plank of its policy and the UK and Ireland’s Institute of Travel Management and the German VDR making them major themes of their conferences, the industry is taking the problem of global warming seriously.

The worry is that fine words are not being matched by enough fine deeds or that these fine deeds are not the right ones.

Modern, more fuel efficient aircraft make only a small difference to the level of carbon emissions. A rise in the number of flights would quickly negate such gains.

Carbon off-setting, like the planned EC’s Emissions Trading Scheme, which while valid and positive, only compensates for the carbon that has already been emitted. It does not reduce it.

A Single European Sky would reduce carbon emissions by as much as 12% but obstacles like concerns over national sovereignty and military issues seem set to delay it.

What it seems to come down to is an increasingly urgent need to curb the growth of aviation, even reduce the number of flights.

Scientists have predicted that if aviation goes on growing at its current rate, its CO2 emissions will double by 2025 and reach 15% of the world total by 2050. If this were to happen, the UK Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research this emission rate would wipe out all savings made in other sectors, e.g. less use of cars.

But how flights can be contained or reduced is something on which there is not even the beginning of any common ground.

Can you persuade people to fly less or does there have to be coercion through taxes or even limits on the number of fights.

Better, cheaper and faster trains are one solution for the short haul market – but most countries are some way from that.

Another solution currently being proposed in the UK is a tax on aviation fuel. One suggestion was £100 per person for European and African flights and £250 for long haul trips. Others have suggested that each individual has a personal CO2 allocation on which they can trade.

But the other side of the coin is business needs face to face meetings for which travel is essential.

It must also be in the commercial interest of companies to cut their flying.

With time running out, it’s a dilemma that has to be faced soon.

If nothing is done, low cost flights might acquire the same status as driving private cars – an untouchable right. Some believe this point has been reached already.