For Groningen Airport, the brief guest appearance by the ticket seller Green Airlines has financially uncomfortable consequences. The airport received a fine for misleading advertising that was positioned on the airport website for the German ticket seller.

The charter flights for Green Airlines from Groningen were not carried out particularly frequently, because after only a few circulations, German Airways initially withdrew from the Dutch airport. It wasn't long before the German aviation company refused to operate ultra-short-haul flights from Paderborn to Westerland for Green Airlines.

The advertising of the ticket seller has now become the undoing of Groningen Airport. Among other things, Green Airlines advertises that it would offset more emissions than would result from carrying out the flights. Furthermore, the charter flights are presented as “climate-fair flying”. Recently, however, only a few trees had been donated to a project.

In the Netherlands, Eric Stam lodged a complaint with the Advertising Code Committee (RCC). It was about advertising that was published for Green Airlines on the homepage of Groningen Airport. This contained, among other things, the advertising promises described in extracts in the previous paragraph. Groningen Airport defended itself by adopting the advertising and advertising copy from Green Airlines.

However, the RCC is of the opinion that the airport should have recognized that it is obviously a matter of “greenwashing”. Among other things, the verdict reads: “The average consumer will interpret this assertion in such a way that the environment benefits from flying with Green Airlines, as this leads to a total reduction of CO2 in the environment. Such a requirement must prove that in this case more CO2 is compensated than is emitted by the flight per passenger, whereby the negative impact on the environment is eliminated and even converted into an environmental benefit. The fact that Groningen Airport relied on the correctness of the statements made by Green Airlines does not release them from their obligation to justify the environmental statements published on their website in part for their own benefit ”.

In the future, Groningen Airport will most likely select its partners more carefully and, in particular, be more cautious when it comes to publishing advertising and PR texts. After all, because of only a few charter flights and then angry travelers whose flights were canceled, they now also received a fine.

Low-utilization Sylt flights are to be reactivated

Although Green Airlines only had a few passengers on board on the Paderborn-Sylt route, it intends to offer charter flights on this route again on Fridays and Sundays from April 1, 2022. The company repeatedly caused a stir, because it gives itself a green image, but allows aircraft to be flown in from distant places in order to transport only a few passengers within Germany. It also happened that there was no passenger on board at all, but the charter aircraft was still in the air.

Green Airlines managing director Stefan A. apparently has a completely different perception of the development of this route. In a press release he can be quoted as follows: “We started our flight offer at a very challenging time this year. Nevertheless, the Paderborn-Sylt route enjoyed growing popularity. We are therefore very pleased to be adding the flights to our flight schedule again next year after our winter break ”.