The Lufthansa Group is introducing an environmental cost surcharge. The surcharge is intended to cover part of the steadily increasing additional costs due to regulatory environmental requirements. These include the statutory blending quota of initially two percent for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) for departures from European Union (EU) countries from January 1, 2025, adjustments to the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) and other regulatory environmental costs such as the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA).
The environmental surcharge applies to all flights sold and operated by the Lufthansa Group departing from the 27 EU countries as well as Great Britain, Norway and Switzerland. The amount of the surcharge varies depending on the flight route and fare and is between 1 euro and 72 euros. The environmental surcharge will be charged on all tickets issued from June 26, 2024 and applies to departures from January 1, 2025. The exact amount of the environmental surcharge is displayed in the price details on the Lufthansa Group airlines’ booking pages.
The Lufthansa Group invests billions in new technologies every year and works with partners on innovations that help make flying more sustainable step by step and advance the scaling of key technologies beyond the Lufthansa Group. In addition, the Lufthansa Group has been actively supporting global climate and weather research for many years. However, the airline group will not be able to bear the gradually increasing additional costs due to regulatory requirements alone in the coming years. Part of these expected costs for 2025 will now be covered by the new environmental cost surcharge.
The Lufthansa Group has set itself ambitious climate protection goals and is aiming to achieve a balance sheet-neutral CO₂ level by 2050. By 2030, the aviation group aims to halve its net CO₂ emissions compared to 2019 through reduction and compensation measures. To achieve effective climate protection, the Lufthansa Group is focusing in particular on accelerated fleet modernization, the continuous optimization of flight operations, the use of SAF and offers for private travelers and corporate customers to make air travel or the transport of freight more sustainable.
background information
EU SAF quotas
As part of its climate protection program “Fit for 55”, the EU has decided on mandatory SAF blending quotas that will increase over the years up to 2050. From 2025, the SAF quota is to be 2 percent, from 2030 6 percent, from 2035 20 percent and from 2050 70 percent. For the Lufthansa Group, this will result in additional costs running into billions in the future.
EU ETS
In the EU Emissions Trading System (EU-ETS) for aviation, CO₂ emissions have been controlled and limited through certificate trading since 2012. The Lufthansa Group is subject to this system for all flights within the European Economic Area (EEA). For flights between the EEA, Switzerland and the UK, there are additional obligations to surrender emission certificates under the emissions trading systems of Switzerland (CH-ETS) and the United Kingdom (UK-ETS).
CORSIA
As part of the climate protection agreement concluded by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in October 2016 – the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) – growth-related CO₂ emissions from international air traffic have been offset since 2021 through the purchase of certificates. All emissions from the aviation industry that exceed the CO₂ emissions of the baseline defined by the ICAO are offset. For the years 2024 to 2035, this is 85 percent of the emissions from 2019.