News: Ryanair in trouble over environmental claims
Flights > News > # 1368 (18/07/2007)
Ryanair has been ordered not to repeat an advertisement that played down the impact of aviation on the environment.
In a press campaign the airline claimed the airline industry "accounts for just 2% of carbon dioxide emissions". The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) ruled it breached rules on truthfulness by not explaining the figure was based on global rather than UK emissions. The UK government figures for domestic and international flights leaving the UK, put the figure at 5.5%.
Ryanair claimed the ASA was attempting to suppress an accurate statement, which it would continue to use. Ryanair argued its 2% figure came from a UN report on climate change, and that it used a global figure because the issue was a global one.
It is the second time this year that the no-frills giant has got into trouble for misleading environmental claims. In January it conceded, following a BBC investigation, that a claim it had cut its CO2 emissions by half in recent years was "a mistake".
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Comment:
Even if these adverts are a little bit economical with the truth, Ryanair are still making two very important points. Firstly, it is no use just taxing airlines if these revenues are not used towards environmental projects, and secondly, whether aviation is responsible for 2% or 5% of global warming, it is still by no means the biggest contributor to the problem.
Of course, this does not mean that the industry should bury its head in the sand, and Ryanair are very well versed in the logic that an environmentally efficient airline is also a financially prudent one.
It is all well and good to suggest that people should travel by train instead of flying, but very few of Ryanair's routes are easily substitutable by rail. In fact, Ryanair are simply not interested in offering short-haul flights which compete with the rail companies - their business model is generally aimed at offering air journeys on routes which would take at least six hours to complete overland. Even if Ryanair are a major player on flights within the British Isles, the vast majority of these are across the Irish Sea, where the journey by land and ferry can never compete with the airlines in terms of time or convenience.
Ryanair might have few friends within the environmental lobby, but their environmental record, in terms of fuel burned per passenger kilometre, is an extremely good one. There have been some suggestions that Ryanair are now looking to some form of carbon trading scheme to pacify their critics, and we hope that when they announce this, they come up with a project which is meaningful and substantial.
