Campaigners offer free train tickets to travellers, call on BA and govt to act on aviation emissions.
Greenpeace has set up a "climate ticket exchange" in Gatwick airport, where people booked on BA's latest domestic route can swap their plane tickets for climate-friendly train tickets.
The environment group is offering the free return train tickets to passengers queuing for the inaugural Gatwick to Newquay flight at the north terminal. Security guards are attempting to move the ticket exchange while Greenpeace members take questions from travellers about the impact of aviation on the climate. Yesterday saw the start of a Greenpeace advertising campaign branding British Airways a global warming dinosaur that sticks two fingers up at the environment.
Greenpeace aviation campaigner Emily Armistead is at Gatwick. She said: "We're giving free train tickets to people in the queue so they can take the climate-friendly train to Newquay instead. By opening up this new route British Airways is flying in the face of the science. Planes are ten times more damaging to the climate than trains, so if we don't do something about the growth in aviation Britain will find it very hard to meet its global warming targets."
The Greenpeace train tickets from Paddington to Newquay cost around the same price as a BA ticket. Taking into account the time and cost of getting to Gatwick from London and checking in, the train is cheaper and doesn't take much longer than the plane. This summer a new high speed rail service between Paddington and Newquay will reduce the journey time to four hours, making British Airways' decision to open the new route even more nonsensical.
Flying is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK, doubling in the 1990s. Flights from and within the UK account for 5.5 per cent of our total CO2 emissions, while aviation's true effect is at least 11 per cent of the UK's climate impact because greenhouse gases create more global warming when emitted at altitude.
Emily Armistead continued: "We're finding travellers are really interested to hear how polluting flying can be. Much as we'd love to operate a permanent climate ticket exchange, our resources don't stretch that far. Instead it will be down to politicians to stand up to BA and reverse the emergence of binge-flying that's doing so much to wreck the climate."
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For more contact Greenpeace on 07801 212967 or 0207 8658255
