British Airways

Thanks to marcus for letting us know about an email that's been sent from British Airways to members of its Executive Club. In it, CEO Willie Walsh appeals to members' sense of loyalty - nay, duty - and asks them to support a third runway at Heathrow. He's even provided an easy online petition to sign - how sweet is that?

He makes no mention of how vital a third runway is supposed to be for the UK economy which is curious, seeing as it's the drum government ministers have been beating recently. Instead, he plays on the drubbing Heathrow's customer service has received in the press by insisting that a third runway will make the "customer experience" that much more comfortable.

1. Heathrow is already Europe's largest airport [i]: adding a third runway will mean a 70 per cent[ii] increase in flight numbers and resulting rises in climate change pollution. It's crazy to be paving the way for such big increases in greenhouse gases when we should be doing all we can to reduce emissions.

Greenpeace volunteers set up a climate ticket exchange in Gatwick airport

Passengers queuing for BA's first domestic flight between Gatwick and Newquay are being offered an upgrade with a difference today: the chance to exchange their plane tickets for climate-friendly train tickets.

BA's new domestic route, opened today, isn't just irresponsible given what we know about climate change - it's also completely unnecessary. If you take into account the time and cost of travel to airports and checking in, travelling by plane works out to be more expensive than train, only a little quicker and ten times more damaging to the climate.