Airlines hit by Carbon tax

A recently stringent rule of carbon taxation has hit the airlines of the Gulf; revealing the amount of money they would need to annually dedicate to this tax. Etihad Airways, the Abu Dhabi owned carrier, may need to spend as much as 500 million euros between now and 2020; as revealed by the head of environmental affairs. Gulf airlines will be obliged to pay fees in Europe, Australia and South Africa depending on the amount of carbon they emit. This ruling will be imposed at the start of next year. Airlines in UAE and all around the gulf are in expansion phases with sky-high ambitions and they might find this to be an enormous hindrance to their plans. "Any airline that has growth plans will be penalized more than those that have fairly steady or flat growth," said Linden Coppell, the head of environmental affairs at Etihad. "We are now estimating [our costs] could be between €300m and €500m, if the carbon price is high." In the Gulf, the big three carriers already operate some of the youngest aircraft fleets worldwide. Etihad and Qatar Airways are also investing in alternative, low-carbon fuels. While many airlines in the UAE and the region look upon this as an obstacle to overcome and expense weighing them down; some airlines are supportively onboard with this new implementation, as they say that they would like to be more environmentally sensitive.