Members of the Parliament's environment committee, on 12 September, deplored the adoption of a report - one day earlier - by their colleagues in the transport committee, which called on the Commission to weaken its proposal on including internal flights into the EU's carbon trading scheme as of 2011 and international ones as of 2012.

While the Commission is proposing an overall CO2 cap based on average plane emissions in 2004-2006, the transport committee said that this would fail to take into account the sector's recent strong growth levels, especially in the new member states.

They called for the cap to be set at 110% of average emissions from 2007-2009 and suggested that airlines be given 80% of this quota for free, with just 20% of permits auctioned. Lastly, they asked for the scheme to be delayed until 2012 so that all airlines are treated equally.