Europe’s aviation industry plans to double its passenger traffic by 2050 and will deplete its carbon budget as early as 2026 / Europe’s aviation industry plans to double its passenger traffic by 2050 and will deplete its carbon budget as early as 2026, a new study by green group T&E (Transport & Environment) shows. Policy makers must act rapidly to address airport growth, frequent flying and under-taxation of the sector. Passenger air traffic from EU airports will more than double in 2050 compared to 2019, if projections by aircraft manufacturers Airbus and Boeing materialise. New analysis by T&E shows that aircraft will burn 59% more fuel [1] in 2050 than in 2019, despite improvements in efficiency. Concretely, in 2050, planes taking off from EU airports will still burn 21.1 Mt of fossil kerosene, a yearly extraction of 1.9 billion barrels of crude oil [2]. (....)