Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr has warned that European airlines may be forced to increase fares and risk losing traffic to non-EU carriers because of the new mandate for the use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).

The EU last week took a huge step towards introducing minimum SAF fuelling requirements,?known as?ReFuelEU Aviation,?which will apply from 2025 ¨C starting at an initial 2 per cent blending mix and then increasing over the years to ultimately reach 70 per cent by 2050.

But Spohr said that while the approach on SAF was right ¡°in principle¡±, European airlines could lose out because the EU¡¯s regulations were not ¡°competition neutral¡±.

¡°Currently, the mandatory blending quotas only apply within Europe, including feeder flights to our hubs,¡± said Spohr.

¡°Non-European airlines are not required to fill up with the sustainable - but expensive - fuel at their hubs. This will make tickets from European airlines more expensive because no airline can compensate for the additional cost.¡±

Spohr¡¯s comments were included in a pre-released copy of a speech he is due to give at Lufthansa¡¯s annual general meeting next week.

He added that higher prices to pay for SAF would ¡°increase the likelihood¡± that passengers would choose to use connections outside Europe because of lower airfares, even if that journey involved detours.

¡°Ultimately, this means that in their current form, these EU regulations only lead to a shift in carbon emissions,¡± said Spohr. ¡°At the same time, it would be like a subsidy programme for airlines outside Europe, which - on top of everything else - have significantly worse environmental and social standards.

¡°Unfair climate protection regulations put European airlines at a disadvantage. In doing so, they are harming not only us but also the climate.¡±

Spohr added that help was needed on this issue from politicians in Brussels, Berlin and other European capitals.

Lufthansa¡¯s CEO also revealed that currently only 3 per cent of the group¡¯s passengers took advantage of sustainability initiatives, such as making flights carbon-neutral and its recently introduced ¡°green¡± fares.

Spohr said the group¡¯s carbon-neutral platform, which allows passengers to pay for sustainable fuel, was ¡°still used by too few passengers¡± after being launched more than three years ago.

¡°The additional cost of carbon-neutral kerosene deters many. For a flight across the North Atlantic, the surcharge adds up to around €400 - not everyone can or wants to afford that,¡± he added.