Etihad, Air France and Lufthansa airlines have adverts banned for misleading impression of environmental credentials

Air France, Lufthansa and Etihad all had adverts banned by the Advertising Standards Authority

If global aviation were a country, it would rank in the top ten emitters of carbon in the world, behind China, the US and India.

Now the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned adverts published by three major airlines, for giving consumers a misleading impression of the airlines’ environmental credentials.

What did the adverts say?

An Etihad Airways advert was among three ads from airlines banned by the Advertising Standards Authority for claiming green credentials.

The Google adverts for Air France, Lufthansa and Etihad, all published in the peak summer holiday season of July, were all ruled by the ASA to breach advertising standards rules by making inflated claims.

The Air France ad claimed the Paris-based airline was “committed to protecting the environment” and urged consumers to “travel better and sustainably”, while Lufthansa suggested its customers would “Fly more sustainably”.

Meanwhile, Etihad’s ad claimed its service included “Environmental Advocacy”.

Why did the ASA ban them and what were the airlines’ response?

Lufthansa's ad said passengers would "fly more sustainably".

The ASA said Air France did not provide it with a “substantive response” to its investigations.

Lufthansa claimed the “Fly more sustainably” claim was a reference to its “Green Fares” option, which passengers could select on European flights and reduced 20 per cent of flight-related CO2 emissions by using sustainable aviation fuel and offsetting the remaining 80 per cent with a contribution to climate protection projects.

However, the airline said it had decided to remove the sentence “Fly more sustainably” from future ads. Etihad said it had immediately removed all references to “environmental advocacy” from its paid-for Google search ads in the UK upon receiving notification of the complaint.

The ASA said air travel produces high levels of both carbon dioxide (CO2) and non-CO2 emissions, which are making a substantial contribution to climate change.

Air France said it was "committed to protecting the environment".

It said it also understood there were currently no initiatives or commercially viable technologies in operation within the aviation industry that would adequately substantiate absolute green claims, such as that Air France was “committed to protecting the environment” and helped people “travel better and sustainably”.

The watchdog said: “In the absence of any evidence demonstrating that Air France were protecting the environment and making aviation sustainable, we concluded that the claims gave consumers a misleading impression of the impact that travelling with Air France would have on the environment.”

The authority said that while flying with Lufthansa’s Green Fares option “might decrease some of the negative environmental impact of flying” with the airline, “we considered that the basis for the claim ‘Fly more sustainably’ had not been made clear in the ad”.

The ASA also welcomed Etihad’s decision to remove the phrase “environmental advocacy” from future adverts, but said it had “not seen any evidence that they were engaged in such advocacy”.

Etihad said it offered "environmental advocacy".

“We therefore concluded that the ad gave a misleading impression of Etihad’s environmental impact, and that the ad breached the code,” it said.

What happens now?

The ASA ruled the three adverts must not appear again.

Rory Boland, editor of Which? Travel, said: "Consumers are increasingly conscious of the environmental impact of their travel plans, but deceptive claims by some holiday firms and airlines can make it impossible for them to make informed decisions before booking.

“Travel companies must clean up their act and stop taking advantage of their customers' desire to reduce the impact of travel on the environment."