Does low cost mean low emissions? Without going so far as to present low-cost airlines as paragons of sustainable transport, aviation consultant Cirium gives low-cost airlines the thumbs up in its Flight Emissions Review study. This recently published report ranks airlines according to the carbon emissions of passengers per seat-kilometre flown. Its Top 20 most efficient carriers in this respect include the following in the top three places Hungary's Wizz Air, American Frontier Airlines and Turkey's Pegasus. Just behind them are Mexico's Volaris and India's IndiGo. Transavia is also at number 13e as well as Canadian carrier Air Transat (15e) and the Greek scheduled airline Aegean (16e). And, of course, Ryanair rounds off the top 20.
This study is based on data from its EmeraldSky solution, launched by Cirium last year in partnership with the start-up RouteZero. offer companies precise measurements on the impact of their business travel by air, this platform uses a methodology that takes into account the weight of flights, the time spent taxiing and in flight, and the fuel model to determine the consumption of a flight and its emissions per passenger. But it does not include the incorporation of sustainable aviation fuel - SAF - in this analysis.
The report also highlights the performance of airlines by type of flight, whether intra-regional or long-haul. For intra-European flights, Wizz Air, Aegean, Transavia and Ryanair are logically the best ranked, but the top 10 also includes scheduled airlines such as TAP Air Portugal, Finnair and SAS. As for intercontinental flights, those crossing the Atlantic saw a French airline come out on top: French Bee. Air Tahiti Nui came in at number 6.e position, just behind TAP Air Portugal, but ahead of Aer Lingus, JetBlue, Air Canada and LOT. Transpacific flights, behind low-cost carrier Zipair Tokyo, airlines such as LATAM, Air Canada, Delta, Aeromexico and Hainan Airlines.
While the German NGO atmosfair, which presented its Atmosfair Airline Index 2024 at the last COP 29 in Baku, did not include low-cost carriers in its study, the comparison proposed by Cirium is favourable to the world's leading low-cost carriers. Not least because their model, based on operating cost savings, is conducive to lower emissions. These include latest-generation fleets and aircraft that require less maintenance and, above all, are more fuel-efficient. The average age of the fleet of the top three is close to or less than 5 years, compared with 12.9 years for Air France, for example. High-density cabin configurations, with a higher number of seats, also result in lower emissions per passenger. This should go some way towards offsetting the growth in global traffic, which is largely being driven by all these airlines.
