SINGAPORE, 9 August 2019: Finnish flag-carrier Finnair flew its first two biofuel flights backed by its “Push For Change” carbon decreasing initiative 5 and 6 August from San Francisco to Helsinki.
The two flights used a biofuel mix of 12%, reducing the total CO2 emissions for the two flights by approximately 32 tons.
“The launch of our Push For Change initiative was an important step for Finnair in order to provide our customers with the opportunity to offset or decrease the emissions from their travel,” said Finnair SVP Communications Arja Suominen.
“We have been pleased with the early phases of the initiative so far, and we are now excited to move forward and fly our two first biofuel flights supported entirely by the Push For Change contributions.
Finnair’s biofuel partners in San Francisco are SkyNRG and World Energy; Shell Aviation has provided logistics and supply chain support for the project.
The sustainable biofuel is produced from used cooking oil in California, which does not compete with food production or the agriculture industry.
Flights flown by Finnair with biofuel are determined by the uptake of the service by Finnair customers. To support biofuel flights, Finnair customers can purchase biofuel via Finnair’s Push For Change service available on Finnair web pages at www.finnair.com/pushforchange, which can also be paid for with Finnair Plus frequent flyer points.
The biofuel available for sale comes in 10, 20 or 65 euros, to reduce the emissions of a return flight in Finland, return flight within Europe, or an intercontinental return flight respectively.
Finnair customers can also choose to support a CO2 emission reduction project by making offset payments of 1 euro for a return flight within Finland, 2 euros for a return flight within Europe, and 6 euros for an intercontinental return flight.
The charges are based on the average emissions and costs of reducing a CO2 ton within the project.
The payments are transferred to the project in full through NEFCO. Finnair also offsets the CO2 emissions of its own personnel’s duty-travel through the CO2 emission reduction project.
Finnair connects 19 cities in Asia with over 100 destinations in Europe.
The airline says it is committed to the industry’s shared goal of carbon-neutral growth from 2020, and to cut CO2 emissions in half by 2050.
