Flight Shaming Puts a Dent in European Travel

Like Klarna, companies across Europe are reconsidering travel policies, and individuals are asking whether jetting off to sunny spots for holidays is worth the environmental cost. The Swedes even have a name for it: flygskam, or flight shame, and it’s a growing threat to airlines in Europe and beyond. SAS AB says its traffic fell 2% in the nine months ended July 30 from the year-earlier period, and Sweden’s airport operator has handled 9% fewer passengers for domestic flights this year than last. Both say flygskam has played a role in declining traffic. “Unchallenged, this antiflying sentiment will grow and spread,” says Alexandre de Juniac, head of the International Air Transport Association. “Politicians aren’t sticking up for us.”

In France, where the #avihonte (aviation shame) hashtag is trending, some lawmakers have proposed a ban on most internal flights. Austria’s state railway—Europe’s leading provider of international sleeping car service—has ordered 13 new sleeper trains, saying the move was spurred by increased demand for overnight travel because of environmental concerns. Germany plans to cut taxes for train journeys by almost two-thirds while boosting levies on flights and establishing a minimum level for airfares. “We’re going to increase the cost of flying and make train tickets cheaper to reflect the cost of carbon dioxide emissions,” German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said in announcing the measures.

Airlines this year will pump almost 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. And the United Nations says aviation is on track to overtake power generation as the single biggest emitter of CO₂ within three decades. Surging green parties, groups such as Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion, and activists like 16-year-old Swedish environmentalist Greta Thunberg are fueling the flight-shame movement by highlighting aviation’s role in global warming. “How dare you pretend that this can be solved with just business as usual and some technical solutions,” Thunberg, who travels Europe by train and took a sailboat to New York, told the UN’s Climate Action Summit on Sept. 23. “You are failing us.”

The danger for airlines is growing as companies cut back on business travel. Finland’s Nordea Bank Oyj aims to trim flights 7% this year and plans internal carbon fees to meet that goal. German broadcaster Tele 5 in June said it will no longer pay for domestic flights for its 60 employees. Consulting company PwC and Switzerland’s Zurich Insurance Group AG say they want to reduce carbon emissions per employee by a third or more from 2007 levels, mostly by cutting back on flights. “More of our meetings are taking place in virtual space,” says Alison Martin, Zurich’s chief executive officer for Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. “Flying isn’t a prerequisite for getting business done.”

European carriers are at the greatest risk because they often fly short distances, and high-speed rail is a viable alternative. While it takes more than 19 hours to travel the 800 miles from Chicago to New York on Amtrak, a European can cover a similar distance from London to Marseille in a bit more than six hours. For airlines, the concerns couldn’t come at a worse time: Brexit jitters are hitting consumer confidence in Britain, the region’s biggest aviation market. And more than a half-dozen European carriers have gone bust in the past two years as they grapple with falling fares, slowing economies, rising fuel costs, congested airspace, and extreme weather.

To burnish its green credibility and mitigate concerns about flying shame, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is even discouraging travelers from boarding its jets—at least sometimes. “Railway or other modes of transportation can be more sustainable than flying, especially for short distances,” the company, which focuses on long-haul flights, said in ads this summer. In August, Deutsche Lufthansa AG CEO Carsten Spohr lashed out at no-frills carriers, telling Bloomberg Television that supercheap fares stoke demand for needless travel and make the industry an easy target for climate campaigners. “I don’t think tickets for €4.99 serve any purpose,” he said. Ryanair soon dispatched an email to customers in Germany, saying Spohr’s remarks highlight its rock-bottom prices—and low emissions per passenger because of its tightly packed planes. “We’re very happy with the comparison,” says Kenny Jacobs, Ryanair’s chief marketing officer.

It’s hard for airlines to push back, as there’s little they can do to reduce their carbon footprint. While manufacturers have introduced more efficient jets in recent years, CO₂ output per passenger mile remains at least quadruple that for trains. And thousands of older models are in service because planes typically fly for decades before being retired. Carbon offsets—paying someone to plant trees or otherwise reduce or absorb CO₂—can help ease passengers’ conscience, but few people use them, and every flight still creates tons of carbon dioxide. With breakthroughs such as electric or hybrid jets unlikely to see commercial service before the 2030s, a quick technological fix for the CO₂ problem is improbable, says Tim Clark, CEO of Emirates. “In the next couple of decades, we might see some short-haul aircraft” with hybrid engines, he said at a September conference in London. “But with long-haul, it’s much more difficult.” —With Stefan Nicola

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.