Let’s get a few facts straight.
Ryanair in common with all airlines using EU airports has to pay for only 15% the greenhouse gases it emits.
In that respect the company is no different from the 10,000 other heavy energy users in the EU who have a legal obligation to reduce their emissions.
Ryanair told everyone last October that the compliance cost of meeting their emissions trading obligations was €16 million a year; this figure was based on buying carbon allowances at €10.75 a tonne.
Today, the price of these allowances has fallen by a third to €7.22 so surely the company’s compliance costs must have fallen? Eh no!
By my calculation Ryanair may have to buy 1.2 million tones of carbon allowance (85% of the 8 million tonnes emitted) in 2012 and multiplied by €7.22 their compliance cost equals €8.7 million: way short of what the company claimed just a few weeks ago.
Now here comes the rub.
Ryanair carried some 76.4 million passengers in 2011 and assuming a similar number fly next year then the per capita cost of compliance being passed onto passengers should be just 11 cent.
Great that Ryanair is creating awareness about climate change.
Pity the airline is too greedy.
No doubt the Commission for Aviation Regulation will have something to say about this blatant over-charging.
In the interest of customer service perhaps Ryanair might provide the basis for calculating its climate change stealth tax.
