Lufthansa's Intriguing "Green Fares" Expand Worldwide

Also known as sucker fares.

I’ve been curious what effect the shift to dollar-based programs in the US has had on businesses where people book their own travel. For the ethically challenged, why not book that $450 fare instead of the $200 fare? Smart move by the airlines, but not so great for some businesses.

People who are ethically challenged rarely limit their unethical behavior to one domain. Sooner or later they get caught with something else. Paul, Weiss has expertise investigating workplace shenanigans.

The problem is that it includes 80% (or 90%, respectively) of unclear compensation projects and only 20% (or 10%) SAF.

And as a corporate traveller, you don’t get a certificate, you would need for the ESG reporting of your employer. So bottom line, not intriguing at all, but pretty useless.

Lufthansa's green fares are almost entirely based on carbon offsetting projects which are unclear. This is a strategy to get "ethically conscious" (heavy quotation marks there) flyers to pay more for what is most likely not a substantial offset of their emissions. It seems Lufthansa has found success with this, as they are expanding it. But it's a profit making scheme, nothing to do with the environment.

Carbon offset scams.
They just do it at COP level.

Matter of time before the you would be allow you to offset criminal conviction.
Wait, rich people can already get away with murder.

This is clever from Lufthansa from a purely economic point of view. They are obliged to pay for The EU CO2 émission trading scheme and ICAOs CORSIA. Now they are simply passing on the costs to the passenger. In other words: If you buy this ticket, Lufthansa can reduce the costs they are obliged to pay anyway! Lufthansa and Carsten Spohr have in my opinion again and again shown they are only “Greenwashing”. If Lufthansa was truly green, how can they propose something so bad for the climate as they recently did, when they asked EU to demand all airlines flying to EU to avoid Russian airspace? If that is implemented the additional fuel burned by Chinese airlines will be a huge additional pollution. I totally from a business point of view, but that is not a green company proposing something like that. Would appreciate if they just were honest: Lufthansa cares about the financials, period.

There are sanctions against Russia in case you forgot. Why should Putin benefit from Chinese airlines over-flying their borders and paying for it on the way to EU? Of course Germany are right to demand it from the EU.

"Now they are simply passing on the costs to the passenger."

Economics 101: ALL costs get passed onto the customer unless either the corporation's managers are willing to accept a lower gross margin or they can find a way to pass the cost on to the government, in which case everyone pays. What do you think the corporation's choice will be? It sure won't be accept a lower gross margin!

"Lufthansa cares about the financials, period."

Well, not really: One must never forget Lord Thurlow's observation:

"Corporations have neither bodies to be punished, nor souls to be condemned, they therefore do as they like."

It's the greedy managers who care about the financials and little else. Perhaps the answer is to take a page from the playbook of U.S. judges who used to sentence slum landlords to live a month in the hovels they were renting; maybe airline executives should be periodically compelled to spend a couple of weeks on the road at the mercy of their own creations.

Every person has their own moral codes, this thing might look clear cut but it isn't always. To give a less straightforward example, employers who are expecting staff to travel outside of working hours and without being paid any overtime or given time off in lieu may not see anything wrong with the practice, but clearly there are ethical implications to it. Taking your logic further would mean that such an employer is willing to seriously cut corners when it comes to health and safety (after all, time off work is important to ensure employees can switch off and recover from work pressures), it's an interesting argument but I don't think that many people share your viewpoint.

If anything, anyone who's ever investigated potential employee misconduct should know that there are multiple sides to each story and that ascribing motivation to actions or omissions frequeny ends up being little more than speculation.

Really wanna protect the environment?

Just tell China and India to implement some real, non-hypocritic eco-pro policy.
No other option would work if those two keep pollute the globe.
Wait, they've got a ton of apologists in almost every country's politics.
Nevermind, it would be impossible to actually improve the situation.

Sorry Earth that we suck.

Sorry if I was unclear.
Yes there are sanctions and it’s a solid economic (and political) argument that Chinese airlines shouldn’t benefit from it. My point is that Lufthansa frames their point of view as being “Green”. If they were honestly green, then they shouldn’t argue for not flying over China, as that would increase overall emissions.

In regards to the “passing on to consumers”. Lufthansa are obliged to pay for their emissions through the EU Carbon trading scheme and CORSIA. If they didn’t have “Green fares”, then all those costs would be passed on to the consumer. By introducing “Green fares”, the additional money passengers voluntarily are paying, can be used to decrease Lufthansa’s direct payment to the trading scheme and CORSIA. In other words: If you don’t buy a “Green fare”, Lufthansa have to pay to the Trading Scheme and CORSIA from the overall ticket price. If you do buy a “Green fare”, you are saving money for Lufthansa, as you are paying to the Trading scheme and CORSIA by yourself.
Hope that clarified.

Ben, I am frankly disappointed with how much you cover Lufthansa Group. They are single handedly trashing air travel experience for all European carriers....
This is just another ripoff... they are still flying A340's that are horribly fuel inefficient.