The complaint filed with the European Comission was made by 23 consumer groups from 19 countries, who claimed the airlines have made misleading climate-related claims that breached EU commercial rules, the European Consumer Organization (BEUC) has said.
The airlines involved in the suit are Air Baltic, Air Dolomiti, Air France, Austrian, Brussels Airlines, Eurowings, Finnair, KLM, Lufthansa, Norwegian, Ryanair, SAS, SWISS, TAP, Volotea, Vueling, Wizz Air.
Aviation, which accounts for approximately 3 per cent of total CO2 emissions worldwide, is considered a hard-to-abate sector due to a lack of technologically mature alternatives to traditional jet-fuelled engines. Currently, decarbonisation efforts are focused on lowering the carbon emissions of jet fuel by mixing conventional fuel with sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and carbon offsetting and reduction schemes.
However, decarbonising the sector is still an ongoing process. BEUC and its partners have...