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What are we doing?

Transport

Sustainable Aviation

Most of our charter flights are with Thomsonfly. Thomsonfly is 50% more fuel efficient than 30 years ago. High density seat configurations, improved by the installation of new 'thin' leather seats and high occupancy combine to provide a lower emission rate per passenger than a comparable scheduled flight.

Thomsonfly's pilots continue to operate an internal initiative - the Clean Fly programme whenever conditions allow. The modern flight planning system in place ensures routes are planned with maximum efficiency. Thomsonfly is part of a UK industry wide project and strategy that is backed by the government to promote environmental improvements.

http://www.sustainableaviation.co.uk/

Thomsonfly is also a corporate member of the British Air Transport Association Environmental Group and International Air Carriers Association (IACA). Thomsonfly also has a cargo operation, increasing the utilisation of the aircraft space.

How the CarbonNeutral flights programme works by reducing emissions to net zero

Crystal, the only major tour operator to be CarbonNeutral® since 2003, announced in December 2006 that holiday prices will include carbon offset as part of a CarbonNeutral flights programme.

We deliberately chose this route because we wanted to make it as easy as possible for our customers to know what was available and join in. We just didn’t see other schemes working so well - where the offset option may be difficult to find, or involves a separate purchase through a linked website.

The carbon offset fee is included in each invoice, and can be either: £3.25 per person (for flights to the Alps), £4.00 (to the rest of Europe) and £13 (for long-haul flights).

The way it works is that you are paying for every 1kg of CO² produced by your flight, to be ‘neutralised’ by 1 kg saved through climate-friendly projects around the world. These could include solar, hydro power, and wind farms – and the money coming in from schemes like CarbonNeutral enables some of these schemes to happen in the first place.

The sum is based on the distance the holidaymakers are flying and they can opt out by deducting the carbon offset cost from their holiday confirmation if they don’t want to join the scheme.

The programme is operated by the leading climate change business, The CarbonNeutral Company, and according to the publicly published standards of The CarbonNeutral Protocol.

MD of Crystal says: “We led the way on carbon offset in the travel industry, making our own operations CarbonNeutral back in 2003. The larger footprint, however, is associated with the air travel of the holiday service we provide. This new scheme is equally ground breaking – ‘banded’ offset which also generates contributions which will drive further awareness and action on climate change’.

Jonathan Shopley, Executive Director of The CarbonNeutral Company comments:

“This is a momentous step forward, for a company as large as Crystal to extends its own action on climate change, and to make it as easy as possible for its customers to do their bit. This kind of pioneering activity empowers us all to make small but critical contributions that collectively make a real difference.”

For further details see http://www.carbonneutral.com/