Thomson Airways lambasts Atmosfair airline survey

Chris Browne, MD of Thomson Airways, the airline for TUI Thomson and First Choice, has slammed Atmosfair’s Airline Index, calling it a misrepresentation of carbon efficiency within the industry.

"Announced at ITB this week, the survey, which included 116 airlines, purports to name the world’s greenest airlines", says Browne, "however, whilst we would like to congratulate Monarch on their good performance, we are particularly disappointed that Thomson Airways was not approached for inclusion."

"As the biggest holiday airline in the world and winner of the British Travel Awards Most Environmentally and Socially Responsible Airline for the last five years running, we have openly championed other airlines to publish their fuel performance data."

"As the airline that takes more holidaymakers to more holiday destinations than any other, we are proud of our airline’s environmental performance. We are committed to a number of sustainable targets that include reducing carbon emissions, which are an already industry-leading 75.5g of CO2 per revenue passenger kilometre. According to information in the public domain, that makes us the most fuel efficient airline in the UK."

"We have reported on carbon emissions for the past five years and made repeated calls for all airlines to publicly declare their emissions data, unlike other companies who refuse to be so transparent. The failure to take such facts into consideration discredits this survey and highlights the need for all airlines to report publicly on their carbon efficiency in an agreed and standard format."

Said Dr. Dietrich Brockhagen, Executive Director of atmosfair:  “We have used solely third party data sources as foundation for the index i.e IATA WATS, ICAO TFS, Airline Data etc. none of which filled the data gaps for Thomson, notably on the load factors. Thomson Airways has been classified as a low cost airline by the ICAO ATI service.”

“Of course we did not contact the airlines directly, since we got all necessary data from at least two different independent sources, which allowed for consistency checks.”

“We cannot accept data coming from any airline directly, since this would render the index prone to bias. We will strictly adhere to this rigorous approach when in 2012 we prepare the next index. If Thomson data is in the sources next time as it is from all other airlines it will figure in the airline index 2012.”

“atmosfair has been rated the best offset agency in Europe and in Germany in two independent reports in 2010. It is our role as independent organisation to provide a third party view.”

Valere Tjolle
Valere Tjolle is editor of the Sustainable Tourism Report Suite. Special Offer on Sustainable Tourism Marketing Guide CLICK HERE Special Offer on Sustainable Tourism Ministers Briefing CLICK HERE