The Alliance for Air Transport Sustainability is born
Major players of the corporate sector, academia and the third sector announced earlier today the creation of this multisector alliance aimed at providing a cross-sectional response to the challenge of environmental, economic and social sustainability in aviation
Major players of the corporate sector, academia and NGOs marked a key milestone earlier today by creating an Alliance for Air Transport Sustainability (AST) to respond to sustainability, the greatest challenge for aviation today and tomorrow. The purpose of this collaboration is to promote sustainable aviation from an environmental, economic and social perspective.
The Alliance was created earlier today with the signing of its founding document by the Governing Council, which is formed by ALA (Spanish Airline Association), Airbus, Aena, AESA (Spanish Aviation Safety Agency), Air Europa, Air Nostrum, AOP (Spanish Association of Oil Product Operators), Binter, Boeing, CEOE (Spanish Confederation of Employers’ Organisations), ECODES Ecología y Desarrollo, ENAIRE, Exolum, IATA, Iberia, TEDAE (Spanish Association of Defence Technology, Aeronautics and Space Administration), Transport and Environment, the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM) and Vueling.
The signing ceremony held at the Airbus facilities in Getafe (Madrid) was attended by the chairman of ALA, Javier Gándara; the head of Airbus Commercial Aircraft in Spain, Ricardo Rojas; the chairman and CEO of Aena, Maurici Lucena; the general manager of Aesa, Montserrat Mestres; the CEO of Air Europa, Jesús Nuño de la Rosa; the chairman of Air Nostrum, Carlos Bertomeu; the chairman of AOP, Luis Travesedo; the chairman of Binter, Rodolfo Núñez; the vice-president of Global Technology, Boeing Research & Technology of Boeing, José Enrique Román; the chairman of the CEOE’s Tourism Council, Juan Cierco; the associate director of Fair Transition and Global Alliances at ECODES, Mario Rodríguez; the general manager of ENAIRE, Ángel Luis Arias; Exolum’s CEO, Jorge Lanza; IATA’s regional vice-president, Rafael Schvartzman; Iberia’s chairman, Javier Sánchez Prieto; TEDAE’s chairman, Ricardo Martí Fluxá; the Spanish director of Transport and Environment, Isabell Büschel; and Vueling’s chairman and CEO, Marco Sansavini, among other personalities.
The Alliance seeks to promote the decarbonisation of the aviation sector by favouring a rational and orderly identification and implementation of new technologies and innovative processes to ensure the long-term sustainability of the sector.
It is devised as a collaboration system comprising entities from different areas beyond the aviation sector, such as the corporate world, academia and the third sector. Its purpose is to provide a cross-sectional response in order to progress on the transition towards more sustainable transport, which is a commitment of the aviation sector. The Alliance is open to the incorporation of more members to develop this objective and is ready to join forces with the authorities so that the required collaboration can be obtained from both the public and private sectors to face this challenge.
Among other objectives, the Alliance aims to lead the decarbonisation of the sector by covering all possible solutions and technologies to achieve this, as well as boosting Spain’s industrial capability to offer disruptive technologies and other low-carbon alternatives and circular economy projects. Another aim is to encourage the collaboration of the public and private sectors to favour RDi and accelerate the development of low-carbon aircraft. Furthermore, the Alliance seeks to favour the production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) on a large scale in Spain, and to promote initiatives that ensure the circularity of the waste generated by the sector. In short, it is hoped that Spain will become a benchmark in the development of new technologies in the aviation sector.
ALA’s chairman, Javier Gándara, highlighted that the Alliance is the result of the commitment of the aviation sector to a progressive decarbonisation, but stressed that this transition should be balanced and rational to ensure the environmental, economic and social sustainability of the sector. ‘This Alliance will allow us to find the best road towards the transition of the aviation sector, to which we are fully committed, based on dialogue and cooperation and by joining forces to ensure the sustainability of aviation in the future from a triple perspective: environmental, economic and social,’ said the top authority of ALA.
‘At Airbus, we have a clear purpose: to be pioneers in a sustainable aerospace industry for a safe and united world. This is the ambition that is behind everything we do and develop. However, it is clear that we cannot do this on our own. We must join forces with everyone in the industry and the creation of the Alliance is a key milestone on this road,’ highlighted the head of Airbus Commercial Aircraft in Spain, Ricardo Rojas.
The Alliance for Air Transport Sustainability (AST) is composed of over 900 companies or entities that generate more than 294,000 direct positions and record a turnover exceeding 80.580 billion euros.