Eurowings Now Sells $21 Juice To Offset Carbon Emissions

I can’t decide whether this is a creative initiative, or if April Fools’ Day has just come early…

Eurowings now sells very expensive “SAFt”

Sustainability is of course an increasingly important topic for airlines, and we’ve seen many carriers introduce initiatives that allow customers to offset emissions from their travels. Lufthansa Group regional low cost carrier Eurowings has just introduced such a concept, but in a creative way.

Eurowings is now selling organic fruit smoothies onboard its flights, called “SAFt.” That’s a play on words, because “saft” is the German word for juice, and “SAF” is the abbreviation for sustainable aviation fuel, which many airlines are trying to increasingly use.

This drink doesn’t come cheap, though, as it costs €19.50 in the carrier’s buy on board menu, known as Wings Bistro. The logic is that purchasing this juice is a contribution that offsets the flight related carbon emissions for one passenger on an average Eurowings route. The compensation is made up of two components:

• Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) reduces 10% of flight-related carbon emissions
• The remaining 90% of flight related carbon₂ emissions are offset by contributing to a high-quality climate project portfolio with the partners myclimate, Climate Partner, and SQUAKE

For those not familiar with sustainable aviation fuel, it’s produced from biogenic waste from renewal sources, such as cooking oil, and has a carbon footprint around 80% lower than that of fossil kerosene over its entire life cycle. The challenge with sustainable aviation fuel is that it’s expensive and it’s kind of hard to scale its use, which is why the industry is somewhat divided on it.

Eurowings points out how the smoothie from kraftschluck is also focused on sustainability — it’s organic, is produced in Germany, and has no added sugar. The company guarantees that 99.9% of its fruit comes from German organic farms with short transport routes.

I give Eurowings credit for this initiative

At first I kind of thought this concept bordered on being a joke, but I actually think it’s a cute idea. Eurowings already allows passengers to offset journeys prior to travel using the Planet Blu platform.

However, this is intended to be a more spontaneous option, for those who may not have considered offsetting their travels prior to their flight.

Presumably this will be featured prominently in the buy on board menu, so many people will see it. After all, you have a captive audience onboard a flight, and people are more likely to read any sort of literature if they have nothing better to do.

The airline is taking a creative approach here with how it’s naming this drink. However, I question whether enough people will actually buy this for it to make sense:

• Eurowings is a low cost carrier, so you generally have a pretty price sensitive customer base (not always, but sometimes)
• It’s interesting to take this approach, rather than giving people the option to just add a certain amount to any buy on board purchase, to offset their emissions
• Ultimately there’s a cost to carrying these bottles around, in terms of dollars and emissions, since they increase the weight of the plane

It’s a fun thing to give a try, so let’s see how it goes.

Bottom line

Eurowings is getting creative with the way in which it’s asking passengers to consider offsetting their flights. The airline is now selling an organic smoothie onboard for €19.50, named “SAFt,” and it’s stated that this roughly offsets carbon emissions based on the average length of a Eurowings flight.

I imagine a lot of people will be caught off guard by seeing such an expensive smoothie in a buy on board menu. It remains to be seen how many people actually buy it, though.

What do you make of Eurowings’ expensive SAFt?!