A corporate travel expert has called on industry leaders to move beyond just “measuring sustainability”, and to do more to put “hard policy” in place such as banning one-day business trips and to choose airlines offering carbon emission offsets.
Johnny Thorsen, vice president partnerships of travel-as-a-service platform Spotnana, said he is not seeing customers using technology that is already there, for example, where passengers can view both the carbon emission tax and total fare during booking.
According to Nicola Winchester, director, global travel, EY, Spotnana is educating passengers on the purpose of trip and the cost of carbon emissions, but aircraft type choices were still not available to make informed sustainable decisions.
Both were speaking at the Industry Leaders Panel at the recent Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) APAC Conference, and were joined by John Simeone, CEO, Jetstar Asia.
Simeone added that achieving a sustainable level of sustainable aviation fuel required collaboration with partners, peers, government and local-level support.
He shared that an Australian coalition has been formed to support the buying of sustainable aviation fuel, and to meet a 2050 target of 60 per cent of its use.
As to how airlines can do better, Thorsen said European carriers Lufthansa and Scandinavian Airlines that are marketing “green fares” should follow through with information on the carbon emissions saved.
Simeone pointed out that “how an airline offer is made can change the reality of the business and supply chain operation for the green customer to make a decision based on offers coming out”.
“Now, the passenger can’t do that part,” he commented.
The discussion was moderated by GBTA APAC regional director Elle Ng-Darmawan, who also posed the question of technology alleviating the manpower crunch.
Thorsen said that funding for technology to address “the industry running out of labour” has increased by between 30 and 50 per cent, but Winchester pointed out that technology has also brought about different complexities of travel that need to be understood.
