Nordic carrier Finnair will operate in August two transatlantic flights with a biofuel blend as part of its environmental "Push for change" initiative. The airline says that flights from San Francisco to Helsinki today and on 7 August will be powered by kerosene containing 12% biofuel, which has been refined from used cooking oil in California. Senior vice-president communication and corporate responsibility Arja Suominen states that the "Push for change" programme is an "important step for Finnair" to enable customers to reduce carbon emissions for their flights, and that the airline is "pleased with the early phases of the initiative". Passengers are able to offset carbon emissions or purchase biofuel for their flights through the programme. "We naturally hope that customers will be increasingly willing and interested in using the service in the future as well," Suominen says.

Source: FlightGlobal

Delta and its joint venture partners Air France, KLM and Virgin Atlantic will carbon-offset more than 1,800 metric tons of emissions from more than 15,000 Delta, Air France, KLM and Virgin Atlantic customer flight segments to and from Chicago surrounding the 2019 GBTA convention, the preeminent annual industry gathering of travel sales and service professionals globally. “We know sustainability is important to every member of the Delta, Air France, KLM and Virgin Atlantic family, including those who we do business with daily and our many thousands of corporate and business travelers who fly us every day,” said Bob Somers, Delta’s Senior Vice President – Global Sales. “These offsets are symbolic of our continued commitment to sustainability and our long-term target of reducing our carbon emissions by 50 percent by 2050.”
“I’m also pleased to share that Delta, Air France, KLM and Virgin Atlantic have committed to increase the ease of purchasing carbon-offsets for all our customers who book their travel on Delta.com, AirFrance.us, KLM.com and VirginAtlantic.com” Somers said.

Source: World Airline News

British Airways has not detected any change in ticket bookings as a result of uncertainty around Brexit. "We are not seeing any evidence of the Brexit impact," said Willie Walsh, chief executive of BA parent IAG, during a results briefing today. He acknowledges that Ryanair and other airlines have warned how their operations could be affected, especially by a no-deal Brexit. But he insists: "We don't see any impact on bookings or the profile of bookings going forward in terms of the visibility that we have." Walsh suspects that BA's heavy reliance on London and the UK southeast may be one explanation for the carrier's apparent resilience. "Maybe… we are not exposed to the whole of the UK as they [competitors] would be," he says. Nevertheless, BA has put in place contingency plans for the UK's scheduled departure from the EU on 31 October. These, Walsh notes, are based on "a sensible Brexit". He says the carrier will be flexible in adjusting capacity if bookings fluctuate.

Source: Flightglobal