SAA went live on the FuelPlus EU ETS Module at the end of August  last year, and although not much time was left to familiarize ourselves with the system and prepare for compiling the 2010 reports required by the UK authorities, implementation was an extremely seamless process. It was pleasing to note that FuelPlus had been proactive well in advance in preparing airlines for what was coming and had catered ably for these requirements in the module.

The advantages of this system for SAA were:

• There were no changes required to day to day processing of uplifts from what staff were used to in the existing FuelPlus systemThe new module (in adopting method B) provided a side benefit with improved focus on capturing of shut down fuel for APU burn monitoring
• The built in reasonability checks in the system for suspicious consumption figures (eg. MAX) with a breakdown into categories assisted greatly in identifying issues for correction
• Development of interfaces from other IT systems, especially for Tonnes-km reporting purposes, posed no real challenge and gaps in this new data were easily identifiable
• Reports were easily downloadable into Excel to facilitate analytical review and for presentation in a very comprehensive format to the verifiers
• The final report formats were exactly what was required by the authorities and, although requiring some adaptation, were in the main easily exportable into EU  Templates
• The only disadvantage, although not really impacting overall annual consumption, is that one ends up with 2 different bases of calculation with Method B basis replacing the previous FP basis of calculating consumption for all EU flights

In the words of the Head of Petroleum Affairs responsible for the compilation and submission of the reports “How one would cope with meeting ETS requirements given the timeframe without such a system in place beats me!”

Clive Manby

South African Airways