The most important elements of the proposal for the Directive:

• Aircraft operators whose activity of aviation is registered in one of Member States take over the obligation for inclusion in the greenhouse gas emission allowance trading scheme.
• the scheme will cover all flights arriving at or departing from airports in the Community from 1 January 2012. Flights between EU airports will be included from 1 January 2011. 
• flights by State aircraft, flights under Visual Flights Rules, circular flights, flights for testing navigation equipment or for training purposes, rescue flights and flights by aircraft with a maximum take-off weight of less than 5 700 kg will be excluded from the scheme;
• so far, the scheme only envisages inclusion of CO2 emission allowance. After careful consideration, the Commission will submit a proposal addressing nitrogen oxides and other emissions from aviation until the end of 2008. 
• like other participants in the Community scheme, aircraft operators will have to monitor their emissions of CO2 and report them to the competent authority of its administering Member State by the end of March each year. The reports must be verified to make sure that they are accurate. The basic principles for monitoring, reporting and verifying emissions set out in the proposal will be elaborated by guidelines;
• aircraft operators will be able to buy allowances from other sectors in the Community scheme for use to cover their emissions.