Six months free data storage for airlines as EU Emissions Trading Scheme goes live

Date: 17 December 2009

Location: Geneva

SITA, the aviation IT specialist, today announced that it is putting its Aircraft Emissions Manager at the disposal of airlines for free data collection and storage until June 2010 as the January deadline looms for compliance with the new EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU-ETS).

From 1st January airline operators must begin recording data for every flight from, to, and within, the European Union as part of the new EU Emissions Trading Scheme. 2010 is the baseline year that will determine the level of allowances each operator will have for the next eight years.

The Safeguard programme initiated by SITA enables airlines to save the operational data required for the EU-ETS for more than six months at zero cost. This will allow airlines extra time to prepare for emissions compliance and to choose the IT solution that best suits them while also helping them to avoid financial penalties.

Frederic Falise, SITA's Environmental Programme Director, said: Most operational data required by the EU-ETS is typically stored for less than three months so compliance is a major operational challenge for the airline community. Data reported and verified in 2010 will determine EU-ETS allowances for eight years and, as an example, for a carrier with 40 aircraft this can have a value of Euro 150 million.

The EU-ETS is the first trading system implemented which airlines must comply with and, essentially, SITA is enabling airlines to keep their options open when it comes to implementing a system to prepare their reports for the EU-ETS. By authorizing SITA to store their data for the first six months of 2010 they are effectively taking out a free insurance policy. If the system they are currently planning is not successful their data will still be ready and they can easily switch to using SITA Aircraft Emissions Manager.

SITA's Aircraft Emissions Manager is the world's first Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) software to measure accurately, as per the new regulation requirements, the carbon emissions and the tonnes kilometres flown by aircraft operators.