The airlines have appealed to the Commission that it must hold firm and ignore attempts being made by other industry actors to restrict the scope of the research to Intra-European flights only - arguing if pushed through this would be a huge missed opportunity to enhance understanding about non-CO2 effects in global regions.

In a joint statement, the three European airlines said: “easyJet, Ryanair and Wizz Air have submitted a joint letter to the EU commission calling on them to reject the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) attempts to restrict monitoring of non-CO2 effects to intra-European flights.

"Given long-haul extra-EEA flights account for c.70% of Europe’s aviation emissions, limiting the geographical scope of this research would not only undermine the EU’s proposed Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) programme but would be a huge missed opportunity to enhance understanding about non-CO2 effects in regions such as the North-Atlantic, where a high concentration of contrails are formed by long-haul flights.

"We believe increased funding, data gathering, and research are necessary to build increased understanding of non-Co2 effects and how to best mitigate any negative impact they might have.”