The Austrian Transport Club claims that carbon dioxide emissions caused by aviation in Austria rose sharply in the first half of 2023 alone. Compare this with the year 2021, in which there was comparatively little flying. Flughafen Wien AG strongly criticized the statements.

In recent years, the communications of the Austrian Transport Club have often coincided with those of environmental protection organizations. The officially independent association could well have adapted to the fact that a Green party, Leonore Gewessler, is now in charge in the Ministry of Transport. Aviation is particularly criticized both by the politician, who likes to travel in private jets, and by the VCÖ.

Flughafen Wien AG is of the opinion that the claim that aviation has already emitted as much carbon dioxide in the first half of 2023 as in the whole of 2021 is grossly misleading. Following the VCÖ argument, the number of air travelers has increased significantly more than the CO emissions of air traffic - which confirms the success of aviation's climate protection efforts. According to the Federal Environment Agency, the CO2 emissions from Austrian air traffic in 2018, a year before the corona pandemic and with a similar overall annual passenger volume as this year, only accounted for 0,16% of total emissions in Austria. In general, it should be noted about the VCÖ statements that comparisons of the Corona years 2020 and 2021, which were characterized by extremely strong declines in traffic worldwide, with the present are not particularly serious overall.

At Vienna Airport alone, the number of passengers increased by 2023% after the corona crisis in the first half of 2022 compared to 44, while the number of movements increased significantly less (by 27,5%). Applied to the VCÖ figures, this would be an increase in CO2 emissions per passenger of just 4% - with 44% more air travelers.

The VCÖ demands that kerosene should be taxed in the future. This is already the case today, but only on domestic flights. International connections are tax-exempt due to various agreements. What many people don't know: fuel that is then used for domestic flights must be declared through customs. This means that the use of kerosene within states is by no means tax-free.

In a press release, Vienna Airport rejects the demand that international flights should also be taxed. It is pointed out that the airlines would then simply refuel outside Austria or outside the EU. This would not save any carbon dioxide and no significant tax revenue would arise from “tank tourism”. For long-haul flights, refueling stops in other countries would be very attractive in order to save money. “Austrian aviation already brings over € 100 million into the Austrian state budget every year through the flight ticket levy - an earmark for climate protection measures would therefore make sense, but is missing so far. In contrast to other modes of transport, aviation finances its infrastructure completely itself, which is why the demand for further tax burdens on aviation is unacceptable,” said Flughafen Wien AG.

The VCÖ also calls for rail connections within Europe to be expanded. However, this mode of transport, which is hyped in the eco-camp, also has significant carbon dioxide emissions, as an enormous number of routes are still operated with diesel locomotives or, due to different electricity systems, cross-border with diesel under contact wire. In addition, in many EU countries, significant amounts of traction electricity are produced by burning coal and gas. This means that there is only a local shift in emissions.

“The competition between planes and trains that is repeatedly claimed does not take place, on the contrary: the Linz-Vienna rail connection has shown for years that both transport systems can successfully complement each other. Vienna Airport has been calling for a similar rail expansion to the east for many years. However, short-haul flights themselves are usually feeder flights to further long-haul flights and cannot simply be replaced by trains due to a lack of suitable connecting times and sometimes long journey times. Night trains to inner-European capitals with journey times of more than 10 hours, sometimes with several transfers, sometimes make sense for private travelers, but in any case do not represent a practical and competitive alternative to aviation for business travelers,” said Vienna Airport in a press release.