Additional EU-ETS Aviation Resources

The European Union Emissions Trading Scheme, or EU-ETS, is a mandatory regulation requiring all non-commercial operators who travel into, out of, and between EU member states to monitor their CO₂ emissions starting 1 January 2010.

Each Operator is assigned to a specific EU Country (Member State), which acts as their authority within EU-ETS. All Monitoring Plans and Reports will be submitted directly to the Environmental Agency of the Member State to which you are assigned.

A Member State of the European Union is any one of the sovereign states that have acceded to the European Union (EU). All operators are assigned a specific EU Member State as their regulatory authority within EU-ETS.

EU Member States: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom

EFTA (European Free Trade Agreement) Countries: Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway

EU Outlying Territories: Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Martinique, Reunion, The Azores, Madeira, The Canary Islands, Aland Islands, Akrotiri and Dhekelia

A carbon credit is a traded commodity purchased by an operator from their administering Member State's environmental agency to offset their CO₂ emissions, or carbon footprint, based on their operation's fuel consumption.

Free allowances are free carbon credits that will be allocated in 2012 to operators who take part in the benchmarking scheme during 2010. These free credits will allow operators to save a percentage of the cost for their CO2 emissions from 2012-2020.

If your flight department has not yet done anything in regard to EU-ETS, your first step is to identify your designated EU Member State. The regulatory agency of your assigned Member State is where you will report emissions on a recurring basis. To identify your Member State, visit http://ec.europa.eu/environment/climat/aviation/operators_en.htm.

If you've already identified your Member State, make contact with its regulatory agency and work with them to find out details about their specific monitoring plans submission process. http://ec.europa.eu/environment/climat/aviation/pdf/contacts.pdf

If you cannot identify your aircraft on any Member State list, you must submit a Fleet List Form to the European Commission to be assigned one. You can do this by visiting http://ec.europa.eu/environment/climat/aviation/pdf/Fleet List Form.doc. Then submit the form to both ENV-EU-ETS-AIRCRAFT-OPERATOR-LIST@ec.europa.eu and ENV-EU-ETS-AVIATION-PRIOR-COMPLIANCE-LIST@ec.europa.eu.

You will receive an acknowledgement email within a few days that your form has been received. This may be the last contact you receive from an EU authority until the publishing of the next Operator List in February 2010.

Although most plan submission due dates have passed for Member States, because many operators were incorrectly listed under the name of their service provider, it is possible to still submit a plan. Once your company name is identified on the Operator List, you have eight (8) weeks to comply with regulation and submit a plan.

Yes! Even if you have not yet identified your assigned Member State, you must begin monitoring your Tonne-Kilometre data and CO₂ emissions starting 1 January 2010. This will allow you to have the data available when you do submit your report to your assigned Member State.

While there are third-party companies in the marketplace offering complete solutions to EU-ETS, the cost of these services can be extraordinary. The ETS program is expensive enough due to administrative costs associated with the submission of plans.

Consult directly with your service provider and with the regulatory agency of your Member State. There is ample FREE information, as well as tracking tools, available for operators to help them navigate through this process.

The Universal Weather and Aviation, Inc. IT system provides data that complies with the WGS-84 ellipsoid. The 95KM are added at a later stage, after GCDs have been extracted from the IT system. For Aerodrome coordinates, we use published data that complies with annex 15 of the Chicago convention. Universal's AIP Data (Aerodrome, ICAO) is automatically updated every 28 days to ensure accuracy. Universal tests for AIP accuracy in conjunction with NAVTECH on a regular basis.

No, the operator must designate which calculation they intend on using when submitting their Monitoring Plans. They must consistently use whichever calculation they choose for all applicable flights reported during the monitoring year.

No. Operators are not required to comply with EU-ETS until they have operated an applicable flight to or from
an EU Aerodrome.

Send a e-mail communication to your assigned Member State with a copy of your valid Air Operator Certificate (AOC). In this letter, state the number of operations to, from, or within EU Aerodromes in the previous year to
qualify under the de minimis rule (less than 243 EU legs for 3 consecutive 4 month periods or
10000+ tonnes/CO2 annually).