In a press release issued today, Lufthansa Group announced that from Wednesday 15 February it will offer a new product that will expand its «portfolio of sustainable travel offers». The company will become the first airline group to launch differential values, which it calls «green fares» for flights with a lower environmental impact.
Initially, the product will be available to customers booking itineraries in Europe and to Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, operated by Lufthansa, Eurowings Discover, Austrian Airlines, SWISS, Edelweiss, Air Dolomiti and Brussels Airlines. According to the company, they will be applied on more than 730.000 flights every year.
Emission offseting included in the «green fares»
The new fares will already include compensation for carbon dioxide emissions associated with a given flight. This is a departure from most of the policies adopted recently by various operators. Currently, airlines usually include such a mechanism as an additional option at an extra charge.
However, the company has not yet provided further details on the price of fares for users.
According to the Lufthansa Group, the money will be used for the purchase of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and investment in environmental protection projects. It will also be used for fleet modernisation.
In addition, the «green fares» will allow more mileage for the company’s frequent flyer programmes and up to one rebooking free of charge.
«The product launch is an important building block in our efforts to make air travel more climate-friendly», said Christina Foerster, Member of the Lufthansa Group’s Executive Board responsible for Brand and Sustainability.
«The green fares were already successfully tested last year for flights from Denmark, Sweden and Norway,» said Harry Hohmeister, Member of the Lufthansa Group’s Executive Board responsible for Global Markets and Network. » This showed that the demand for more sustainable travel offers is increasing», he added. «Now we are consistently taking the next logical step and are adding green fares to our well-known fare structure for flights throughout Europe and North Africa», Hohmeister concluded.
See also: Lufthansa wants its passengers to travel on Italian trains
