European aviation emissions have returned to pre-pandemic levels, yet the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) leaves two-thirds of this pollution unpriced.
The EU ETS makes airlines pay for their pollution. However, the EU’s carbon market is structurally flawed, as it currently only includes intra European short-haul routes, leaving legacy airlines’ long-haul flights, the most polluting kind of flights, outside of its scope. As a result, an airline like Ryanair, whose network is concentrated within Europe, pays an average of 50 euros for its tonne of carbon, whereas airlines like Lufthansa pays just 20 euros. Airlines that operate predominantly extra-European routes like the Gulf carrier Emirates pay close to zero under European carbon markets.
In addition, the top 10 most polluting intercontinental routes departing from European airports including London-New York and Frankfurt-Shanghai, escape carbon pricing. The top polluting London-New York route alone generated nearly 1.4 Mt of CO₂ in 2025: the same as the top 10 most polluting intra-EU departing routes combined, and roughly equivalent to the annual emissions from all combustion cars in a city the size of Munich.
As soon as a plane leaves the European Economic Area (EEA), the EU effectively loses the ability to apply carbon pricing to that flight’s emissions. These are instead offset under CORSIA, a much weaker environmental offsetting scheme than Europe’s carbon market.