EasyJet starts UK newspaper campaign to press for a fairer and greener air tax to replace APD
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to make its air tax greener and also free of subsidies to airlines with transfer
passengers. It largely supports plans to replace the current Air Passenger Duty
(APD) with a flight-based tax.
country’s advertising watchdog over green claims.
tax, with a per-aircraft tax based on the flight distance, and would include cargo
flights and some private aircraft. The change has met with opposition not just
from most airlines but has also led to representations from the United States
over its international legality.
excludes private jets and cargo, and charges passengers travelling to Marrakech
the same as those travelling to Melbourne. Passengers flying in the newest, cleanest
aircraft cause less pollution and should not pay the same as someone flying in
an old gas-guzzling aircraft."
of "secretly" lobbying the government to have transfer passengers – who are currently
excluded from APD, at an annual cost of £350 million ($700m) says easyJet – also
exempted from the new proposed tax.
someone else to subsidise them. This is not right," said Andy Harrison, easyJet’s
Chief Executive. "We have a one-off opportunity to make air tax a greener tax,
and to cut subsidies that make the current Air Passenger Duty such a poor tax.
not a mechanism to support the weak parts of the airline industry."
the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), over another green advertising campaign,
which drew a complaint. The advertisement, which appeared in the national press,
encouraged travellers to choose airlines with new aircraft, higher passenger loads
and fewer emissions. It asserted easyJet emitted 22% less CO2, a claim based on
a comparison between one of its aircraft and a traditional airline flying the
same aircraft type on the same route.
and could be justified because its aircraft carried more people on board since
it had more seats and higher load factors. It conceded the total fuel used during
the journey would be higher but as the extra fuel burnt was considerably less
than the number of extra passengers, the emissions per passenger would be considerably
lower than traditional carriers.
it believed the easyJet cabin weighed less than full-service aircraft, therefore
offsetting some of the extra weight from the additional passengers. It said it
had compared an easyJet aircraft against a specific competitor on a specific route
to make a direct comparison using the average fuel burn per block hour, the average
block time and average load factor for each airline, and was confident its calculations
backed the claim. Further, it believed that it was clear from the body copy of
the ad that the claim related to airlines and not aircraft, and readers would
understand the difference.
that, because the basis for the claim had not been fully explained, the ad misleadingly
implied that easyJet planes were more environmentally efficient than the aircraft
used by traditional airlines, whereas we understood that the claim ‘easyJet emits
22% less CO2’ referred to emissions per passenger km, and was based primarily
on the fact that they could carry more passengers per plane than traditional airlines.
We considered that, without qualification, the claim was likely to mislead."
flying could be 50% cleaner within 10 years was not upheld. EasyJet submitted
the ACARE Vision 2020 aviation industry environment targets as support, which
aim for 50% cuts in CO2 emissions and 80% cuts in NOx emissions per passenger
km from next-generation aircraft by 2020.
of aircraft" and that flying "could" be cleaner within 10 years. It also considered
the ad had explained in its heading "easyJet’s view" that the airline was expressing
its own opinion, and the claim was therefore unlikely to mislead.