Scandinavian Airlines Wants to Help You Alleviate Your Flight Shame

Scandinavian Airlines has a plan to help passengers get some relief from lingering feelings of “flygskam” or flight shame. SAS has unveiled a new initiative which will allow passengers to purchase biofuel for their next flight. Flyers are now able to lessen their carbon footprint by buying the low-emission jet fuel used for a portion of the flight.

Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) is asking environmentally-minded passengers to buy biofuel for their next journey. Flyers now have the option of purchasing the low-emission jet fuel for their portion of upcoming flights. The airline says it won’t make money from the service, but will instead use the money collected to add to the amount of biofuel it purchases.

“We are continuously developing more sustainable products and services, including the option to buy biofuel,” SAS Vice President Karl Sandlund explained in a statement unveiling the new program. “We are now inviting our travelers to be part of the transition to a more sustainable way of traveling. In the short term, we believe that an important step in reducing climate impact is to increase the use of biofuel. This product makes it easier for our customers to contribute to this development. It also shows the additional costs of biofuel today and highlights the need for an increased supply of commercial biofuel.”

Much like programs that allow households or businesses to purchase wind energy from power companies, the biofuel bought won’t necessarily be used on the flight of the individual passenger who makes the purchase, but that biofuel will enter the grid, so to speak, and will, in fact, replace traditional jet fuel somewhere in the fleet.

According to the airline, air travelers can now purchase biofuel in blocks equivalent to 20-minutes of flight time per passenger. For example, a passenger would need to buy three 20-minute blocks of fuel to replace that flyer’s portion of fossil fuel that would have otherwise been used on a 60-minute flight. Currently, a 20-minute block of biofuel is being offered for the price of $10. Passengers may voluntarily subsidize the price of their own fuel usage on the SAS website at the time of booking or at any point before departure.

The flag carrier of Denmark, Norway and Sweden is under more pressure than most airlines to offer environmentally friendly travel options. The Swedish language has even coined the word “flygskam” or flight shame to describe the guilt some sustainability-conscious flyers feel over the environmental impact of flying. This growing sentiment has become something of a movement and has already resulted in some passengers simply choosing not to fly and lawmakers proposing increased taxes and regulations on commercial flights.

“I believe that if aviation as an industry fails to articulate a trustworthy roadmap towards a more sustainable industry, and not just hide behind an aggressive goal by 2040, or by 2050, but articulate a clear roadmap from now to the future with tangible sub-goals,” SAS CEO Rickard Gustafson told investors this August. “If we can’t do that, I think the risk for further political involvement and regulation is significant.”

In this vein, the carrier has pledged to reduce its carbon emissions by 25% by 2030 and is calling for the ramping up of the production of advanced biofuel in Scandinavia. Although all of the jets in the SAS fleet are certified to operate with a 50/50 biofuel blend, the airline says the biofuel can cost up to four times the price of traditional jet fuel, making the prospect of expanding the use of biofuel currently untenable.

[Featured Image: Scandinavian Airlines]