Over the years, increasing attention has been paid to the sustainable development of the aviation sector. It is now widely recognised that the costs of these externalities must be internalised and paid for by the aviation industry and its users. Of all the externalities generated from commercial flights, aircraft engine emissions have extensive impacts on human health, vegetation, materials, ecosystem and the climate. Currently, only around 10 airports have applied engine emissions surcharges, which are in Switzerland, Sweden and the United Kingdom. However, the impacts of aircraft engine emissions are a world-wide issue and have drawn significant attention in the global community. This research aims to evaluate the impacts of aircraft engine emissions charges, based on the estimation of social costs, on airlines operating costs. The paper firstly presents the methods of assessing the social costs of aircraft engine emissions. The environmental impacts of aircraft engine emissions include both aircraft landing and take-off and the cruise stage. The social costs of aircraft emissions vary by engine type and aircraft category, depending on the damages caused by different engine pollutants on the human health, vegetation, materials, aquatic ecosystem and climate. Nine Asian airlines, covering both network full service carriers and low cost airlines, are selected for empirical analysis. The implications of aircraft engine emissions charges on the selected airlines and the corresponding effects on operating costs were measured, involving five existing intra-Asian flight routes. It was found that the aircraft engine emission charges would range from 3-12% of the airlines operating costs, depending on the route distance, aircraft types and the nature of airline operating characteristics. For the covering abstract see ITRD E137145.
Abstract