Excluded from the official taxonomy, the richest and most technological sector of aviation risks a serious and uncontrollable crisis
Although business aviation is a pillar of the economy, so much so that Americans distort a famous saying into “No plane, no gain“, that is, no plane, no profit, the Europe of the last two Commissions has waged war on the sector. The reasons are the usual: thepollution and, let’s face it, a distorted and envious vision of a sector inevitably frequented by wealthy customers.
And to think that between flights on behalf of insurance companies – repatriations and transfers – and above all medical transport, the executive airplane sector represents a pillar of high-efficiency mobility in every corner of the planet. Well, now European business aviation may have to wait until September to find out whether the General Court of the European Union will consider it “an environmentally sustainable economic activity”. This is the crux of the lawsuit brought by Dassault Aviation and the Business Aircraft Operators Association (EBAA) for contest the exclusion of the sector from the EU Taxonomy by the European Commission, a decision that the complainants consider discriminatory and that hinders investments in decarbonisation.
The clash between the European Commission and the aeronautical industry
Luxembourg judges then began examining the case on February 10, and The trial is expected to last at least until October. The Ebaa is determined to overturn the Commission’s decision, to avoid a precedent in which part of the aviation industry could be, in the words of the group’s director of public affairs and communications, Róman Kok, “excluded and treated like a sacrificial lamb”. There are two strong arguments: business aviation uses aircraft that are on average more advanced than commercial ones, on which cutting-edge technical solutions are applied which then pass into major aviation. The second: the greatest progress in terms of emissions reduction concerns business jets.
For these reasons, the lawyers from the Sheppard law firmrepresenting European operators, spoke at the conference of Ebaa members last March, and illustrated the dangers arising from the fact that business aviation remains outside the Community Taxonomy, widely used in the financial sector to determine the activities deemed worthy of investment and financing.
The defense of the aviation sector
The lawyers explained that the Commission is very wrong in considering business aviation to be mainly used for leisure travel, and that such flights could easily be replaced by other means of transport. A completely wrong conclusion, since, according to statistics, leisure trips do not exceed 25% of the total. EBAA lawyers therefore accused the Commission of not recognizing that most European airports are not served by scheduled flights, and that only small jets can quickly get to otherwise unreachable places, strongly rejecting the idea that business aviation is not used predominantly for commercial purposesciting as an example the Dassault Falcon aircraft ordered by the French Navy for missions of public interest, such as maritime patrol.
One of the lawyers clarified: “Since they insisted so much on the alleged recreational purpose, we thought it was absolutely right to point out to them that, in reality, it is commercial aviation that is used primarily for recreational purposes; if this was the main reason for excluding business aviation, it should also apply to commercial aviation.”
The importance of the aeronautical industry
In this matter, the difference in image that private jets have on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean is very surprising: while in the USA they are considered “tools of success”, and those who own or use one are generally admired, in the Old Continent those who use such aircraft are often accused of being privilegedwithout considering the great contribution that an airplane of this type makes to the economy, including handling taxes, route charges, excise duties on fuel, hangar storage, maintenance and crew salaries.
In the United States, business aviation contributes an annual turnover of approximately $200 billion, and claims over 1.2 million jobs in manufacturing and service sectors. In Europe, it contributes over 110 billion euros and supports over 440,000 jobs, all highly specialized.
