Air New Zealand has abandoned its 2030 carbon reduction goal, blaming delays in the supply chain of both new planes and alternative fuels, as well as regulatory challenges.
The airline, New Zealand’s largest, has long been part of a Kiwi tourism sector that is the country’s second biggest export, playing on a clean, green image and trumpeting its environmental credentials on in-flight content. Run until 2019 by the country’s now Prime Minister, Air New Zealand set itself climate targets in 2022 that were validated at the time by the U.N.’s Science Based Targets initiative aviation framework, promising a 28.9% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, from a 2019 benchmark, with absolute emissions slashed by 16.3%.
Outside the airline’s control?
But it is now reneguing on those pledges, which it says are being hampered by a range of global factors “outside the airline’s direct control”, according to CEO Greg Foran. These include an ongoing shortfall in affordable SAF production, barriers created by national and international aviation policies, and delays in new aircraft manufacturing.
“Potential delays to our fleet renewal plan pose an additional risk to the target’s achievability,” Foran said in the statement. “It is possible the airline may need to retain its existing fleet for longer than planned due to global manufacturing and supply chain issues.”
Air New Zealand’s fleet includes both Boeings and Airbus craft and both manufacturers have fallen behind on order delivery. Boeing’s woes are well-documented and Airbus too now has 8,585 jets ordered globally but not yet manufactured, due to delays across the supply chain. For an idea of the rate of manufacture, last year, it made 735 planes. The projected delivery date for a newly-ordered A321 fuel-efficient model is not until 2031.
Less than 1% SAF
Foran said in a written statement that the company remains committed to its 2050 net zero carbon emissions target, as per the Paris Agreement, but that the route to getting there would need to be adjusted, with more realistic intermediate goals that “better reflect the challenges relating to aircraft and alternative jet fuel availability.”
The proportion of SAF used by the six major airline groups that report consumption is lower than 1 per cent, according to a recent report. Such a pessimistic announcement from such a large firm, one of New Zealand’s biggest by revenue, sounds the alarm about how achievable change is for the rest of the sector. “If even Air New Zealand can’t do it, it kind of cements the reality that reducing emissions from aviation is an impossible task under the current technical regime,” said James Higham, a sustainable tourism expert at Griffith University in Australia, reported by AP.
The airline’s Chair, Dame Therese Walsh, gave a more upbeat interpretation, insisting the airline would renew its “advocacy for the global and domestic regulatory and policy settings” to enable aviation to “do its part to mitigate climate change risks.”
