Loganair customers will see a £1 carbon offset fee added to all ticket prices from July 1, as part of the carrier’s plans to become carbon neutral by 2040.
The airline has launched a new “Green Skies” environmental programme which it says makes it “the first UK regional airline to take such an ambitious step towards managing and mitigating the environmental impact of flying”.
The non-optional fee will be included in the ticket price, with the carrier stating that “By harnessing the collective power of everyone flying with Loganair, carbon neutral flying can be achieved through the offset programme at a practical and modest cost per passenger”.
The airline says its new carbon offset programme will be “the first of its kind in the UK to directly relate the cost of flying to its environmental impact”.
In October 2019 British Airways announced plans to offset the carbon emissions from all of its UK domestic flights starting from January 2020, and just a month later Easyjet said it also planned to offset the carbon emissions from the fuel used on all its domestic and international flights.
Loganair said that funds raised through the new charge would be invested in initiatives including reforestation projects and wind farms, and later this year the carrier also plans to establish a new fund “to provide grants to help with the cost of establishing renewable energy projects in the communities that it serves”.
In February Loganair’s CEO Jonathan Hinkles announced that the carrier’s engineering base at Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands would play host to a trial of electrical and hydrogen-powered flight tests this summer.
Loganair CEO: “need for frequency, connectivity and day return capability” will remain
The airline is “an active partner” in three future flight projects to design, test and certificate new technology for use in the regional airline sector:
- Project Fresson, led by Cranfield Aerospace Solutions, to convert the Britten-Norman Islander aircraft used on the Orkney inter-isles air services to hydrogen fuel-cell power
- The ZeroAvia hydrogen powered aircraft development
- The Ampaire electrical powered aircraft programme
Commenting on the news Loganair CEO Jonathan Hinkles said:
“We are extremely proud to be the first UK regional airline to set ambitious goals for a carbon-neutral future. The entire transport industry has a huge task ahead to address and reduce emissions from every form of travel, and it’s our responsibility as the UK’s largest regional airline to lead the way.
“The technology required to deliver zero-carbon regional flights is still under development and testing today, and these are programmes in which we’re pleased to be taking an active role. Until they’re ready for use more widely though, we’ll be mitigating the carbon emissions from every Loganair flight through the new offset programme and taking all of the steps that we safely and reasonably can to reduce those carbon emissions in the first place.
“We think it’s right to ask our customers to join us on this journey to carbon neutrality, and the £1 Green Skies charge within Loganair’s ticket prices means that we can immediately mitigate the impact of the carbon emissions from every flight.
“We want our customers to understand just how committed we are to highlighting the need to recognise the impact of each journey – and how a small change for all of us can quickly make a big difference overall.”
