"Become the most environmentally friendly airline." This is the objective assigned to Air France by Bruno Le Maire in return for a public assistance plan of 7 billion euros. Pascal Canfin, Member of the European Parliament (LREM), has "noted" the intention of the Minister of the Economy to condition public aid to ecological requirements, but he is waiting for "concrete methods".
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Air France has already planned to renew part of its fleet by 2022, taking out its old A 340s and A 380s as well as its A 318 and A 319, replaced respectively by A 350 and A 220, models recent, less fuel-hungry, therefore less polluting. But how can the company accelerate to respond to the ecological imperative, which should be imposed on all companies in the now famous "next world" - Covid-19 crisis?
Within the framework of what could become a “Green Deal” of commercial aviation, “why not launch a scrapping bonus for airlines, on the model of those decided in the past for the automobile?”, suggested Éric Trappier, president of the Grouping of French Aeronautical and Space Industries (Gifas), last week. Such a bonus would encourage companies to modernize their fleet with more “eco friendly” models. This would be very beneficial for Airbus (and Boeing) and the ecosystem of subcontractors who work for the two aeronautical giants, strongly affected by the impact on air traffic of the Covid-19 pandemic.