Austrian Airlines has been forced to dedicate a large section of website’s homepage to advertise the fact that it was recently found guilty of ‘greenwashing’ after making highly inflated claims of operating a CO₂ neutral flight using ‘100% Sustainable Aviation Fuel’.
Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) could be one of the primary ways that airlines go about reducing the aviation industry’s emissions of damaging greenhouse gases in the years ahead, but SAF is currently very expensive, and regulations in many countries force airlines to mix SAF with regular aviation fuel.
In fact, in Austria, technical regulations stipulate that airlines can only use SAF if it is added with kerosene at a solution of just 5% SAF to 95% regular aviation fuel. As a result, it’s technically impossible to operate a CO₂ neutral flight with 100% SAF.
Austrian Airlines made the claim in an online advert for flights from Vienna to Venice for last year’s Art Biennale in the Italian city, prompting a complaint from Austria’s VKI consumer protection group which accused the national flag carrier of ‘greenwashing’ over the claims.
Lawyers acting on behalf of the airline initially attempted to argue that VKI had no right to sue it because the advert was targeting ‘business to business’ transactions but both that argument and its other defences were dismissed by the Regional Court of Korneuburg.
In its verdict, the court ruled that Austrian Airlines had created the false impression that it offers CO₂ neutral flights using 100% SAF when this simply wasn’t the case.
In fact, consumers who bought tickets for the so-called CO₂ neutral flight to Venice were in fact simply given the option to book a ‘sustainability option’ at an additional 50% of the ticket price so that Austrian Airlines could purchase SAF for use on future flights.
Between March 2022 and mid-July 2022, Austrian Airlines used just 335 tonnes of SAF, compared to 180,000 tonnes of regular aviation fuel in the same period.
As part of its punishment, Austrian Airlines was ordered to publish the ruling on both its website and its Twitter / X account. The airline was told to display the ruling prominently on its website homepage, although this only applies to the Austrian-specific version of the website.
A growing number of airlines are facing censure over alleged greenwashing, including both Lufthansa and Etihad which were criticised by British advertising regulators over their misleading sustainability claims in recent adverts.
The lesson here is to not bother with pandering to the globalist left/climate alarmists and just conduct business as usual.
You’ve gotta be “in the club” to be allowed to virtue signal about climate without recourse. Like the Hollywood types who lecture us commoners and then fly all over the world in their Bombardier Global 8000’s.