You may remember that a few weeks ago we ran a story about British Airways emailing the members of its Executive Club (who number in the tens of thousands) asking them to sign a petition supporting the proposed third runway at Heathrow Airport.
In it, BA chairman Willie Walsh made the rather remarkable assertion that the massive increase in traffic wouldn't increase emissions in climate change gases. According to Mr Walsh, the fact that airliners would spend less time queuing for take-off and landing spots would reduce CO2 emissions by 330,000 tonnes a year, a figure which the email implied had been endorsed by the government.
Here at Greenpeace towers, that claim was greeted with not a little disbelief - it probably wouldn't be overstating the case to say we were convinced the man was talking rubbish. So convinced, in fact, that we contacted the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and asked them to investigate. Our complaint was based on the fact that, according to the government's own figures, the new runway (which will permit an extra 220,000 flights) would actually raise overall CO2 emissions by 2.6 million tonnes a year.
Earlier this week the ASA announced its decision and found in our favour. BA has been reprimanded for trying to manipulate a government consultation on the expansion of Heathrow by making false claims about the environmental impact. The authority has asked BA "for a written assurance that any future marketing communications about the expansion of Heathrow airport will not suggest an overall decrease in CO2 emissions."
BA has so far refused to say whether it will comply with this directive, or whether it will send another email to its Executive Club members to correct the error. My guess is yes and no - yes they will stop spreading lies about Heathrow expansion being good for the climate (at least in such a blatant manner), but no, they won't bother to inform their own customers that they've been lying to them.
Because telling the truth would be bad for business, wouldn't it?
