The new mile high club

Airlines get passengers offsetting and recycling

When’s the best time to get air passengers to sign up to carbon offsets? When you can prick their conscience the most – on the plane. Virgin Atlantic is now offering offsetting to customers in-flight, along with the duty-free. Calculated to reflect the different weights of entertainment monitors and seats in each class of travel, the money will go to projects in India and Indonesia, via offset outfit myclimate. Meanwhile, Monarch airlines is introducing onboard recycling on flights into Gatwick and Birmingham. Champagne bottles, magazines, drinks cans are all collected up on arrival, and staff say passengers are even separating their own recyclable waste before the crew comes round.

25 March 2008