2.1 – Sustainability in Air Transportation; an Introduction

By Bart Boon

Sustainability is a term widely used in many different contexts. Four OECD criteria are shortly described: regeneration, substitutability, assimilation and avoiding irreversibility. Alternatively, Boon addressed the issue of sustainability from a neo-classical social welfare perspective. His statement: as long as the environmental impacts are externalities and are not expressed in prices and costs for the aviation sector, it is unrealistic that airlines and airports will make the choices that maximise social welfare. In addition, national governments have mixed incentives and a large part of the social costs, the costs of climate change, will occur outside of the country. Will the European Commission be the right party to incentivise the sector?