Passenger Power: If we all start choosing the better flight, we will send a very strong signal to the airlines. 💪♻️
This tutorial explains how to quickly and easily identify the lowest carbon emission flights when you’re booking a flight.
Step-by-step instructions:
Use a flight comparison website that shows you the carbon emissions of every flight. As explained in our Passenger Action Checklist, this is the most important step as it allows you to compare the emissions of all the available flights.
Google Flights is a good option. Google has been providing this information for several years. They use a trusted carbon calculator, one that is overseen by a robust independent advisory committee. The information they provide is as accurate, precise and transparent as possible. 👏
We asked Google Flights to show us all the flights for a one way, economy* flight from London to New York on a random future date. 🇬🇧✈️ 🇺🇸
*These emissions would be five times more for a first class seat.
The first results we are shown are based on what Google says are the ‘top flights’.
These ‘Top flights’ are solely based on price and convenience, they do not consider any environmental costs. ♻️🤷♀️
A Bumprints Bright Idea™:
Flight comparison websites could choose to showcase the least polluting flights first. That would be a huge win for the planet!
The first flight is operated by Norse Atlantic UK, with an environmental price tag of 395 kg of carbon emissions per passenger, +23% more than the average emissions for this route. 👎
But, this is significantly better than the next flight Google suggests, a JetBlue flight which deposits 587 kg of carbon emissions per passenger, +83% above average!🤯
What we love about Google Flights is that one of the ways to organise the results is ‘sorted by emissions’. 🙌
When we do that, we suddenly see a much lower-carbon flight appear at the top of the page, one that emits 240 kg of carbon. That is still a lot of carbon, but it is significantly lower than the first two flights we were shown, and -25% lower than the average emissions* on this route. 💚
*These savings mostly come from the airline using a modern, fuel-efficient aircraft that is the right size for this route, and then filling it with as many passengers as possible.
Google Flights has a new feature that provides passengers an estimate of the ‘contrail warming potential’ of a trip. As contrails can cause even more warming than the carbon emissions 🥵, always try and find a flight with ‘Contrail warming potential: Low’.
Being an environmentally mindful flyer can also save you money💰; these lower-carbon flights are often the cheaper ones too! (Why? Because they burn less fuel).
In Summary: To find the least environmentally harmful flight:
- Use a flight comparison website
- Select ‘sorted by emissions’
- Pick the lowest carbon flight possible
- If possible, pick one with ‘Contrail warming potential: Low’