Government Partnership Needed for Green Growth in Air Travel, Says IATA
The air transport industry currently supports 58.1 million jobs and $2.4 trillion in global gross domestic product, according to a new study released today by the Air Transport Action Group (ATAG) at its Global Sustainable Aviation Summit in Geneva, Switzerland.
The report, Aviation: Benefits Beyond Borders looks at the economic and social benefits of the commercial aviation industry around the world and examines the sector’s environmental progress.
Of the 58.1 million jobs, 8.7 million are within the sector itself, working for airlines, at airports, in air traffic management organizations and for the makers of aircraft and engines. Suppliers to those core aviation companies support nearly 10 million further positions in sectors such as food supply for catering, fuel, components for aircraft and finance.
And the salaries of both these direct and indirect jobs generate an estimated 4.6 million jobs in the wider economy. One of the biggest beneficiaries of air transport is the tourism industry. With 52% of international tourists travelling by air, over 35 million tourism jobs rely on air transport.
The report’s authors say that, based on current rates of aviation growth, the industry is set to support 103 million jobs and $5.8 trillion in GDP in 20 years. Gill explained that this will depend on growth in the sector being fostered.
In the past six years, the aviation industry, coordinated by ATAG, has developed a set of targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions from the sector. First, by capping the growth in CO2 from 2020 through a global market-based measure for aviation; and secondly with a goal to reduce aviation CO2 to half of what it was in 2005, by 2050. These were the first such global targets for any industrial sector and lead to an agreement by governments in October last year to develop the global market-based measure for aviation.
IATA called on all aviation stakeholders to stay focused and unified to deliver a vision for a sustainable aviation future. “Throughout the first 100 years of commercial passenger flight, aviation has demonstrated a proud history of teamwork and delivered innovation that has changed our world dramatically,” said Tony Tyler, IATA’s Director General and CEO, in Geneva.
Although the decision by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to agree a framework for a global market based measure (MBM) by its next assembly, to be implemented by 2020, was an important milestone, Tyler noted that the hard work is yet to come.
Source: Travel Daily News
