bemoreeco

So this is it. Less than a month after we began our search to find the UK’s greenest low-fares airline we’re down to the final two, Flybe and EasyJet. Flybe reached the finals after defeating Aer Lingus (3 – 2) and Ryanair (3 – 2). EasyJet reached the finals with stellar victories over Thomson Fly (4 – 1) and Monarch (4 – 1). Now it’s time to decide, once and for all, who’s the UK’s greenest low-fares airline.

The Basics:

Flybe

Flybe, formerly Jersey European Airways, has not grown as quickly as other airlines. It’s only in the past 6 years that company has come onto the scene. First it was renamed British European in 2000, and then Flybe in 2002 with a repositioning as a low-fares aline. In 2007 Flybe took over BA Connect, British Airway’s’ regional service. BA currently owns 15% of the company.

EasyJet

Wasn’t Airline a great program? It’s probably annoying that it did so much to promote EasyJet at the time. EasyJet is Ryanair’s biggest competitor and has remained at the forefront of the low-cost airline movement. Most Recently EasyJet has purchased GO, expanded into Gatwick Airport and plans to move in to Manchester too.

Head to Head

Easyjet is the greenest low-fares airline in the UK. Generally speaking, it’s been an interesting investigation. There is a major split in the low-fares airline community at the moment about how to tackle climate change. Three airlines, EasyJet, Flybe and Monarch are actively taking steps to tackle the problem. Thomson Fly gets caught saying they want to but not making any actions to support it. The rest, Ryanair, Aer Lingus and BMI Baby either ignore the problem or often deliberately provoke environmentalists.

I hope you enjoyed reading this, it’s been fun to write.

Catch up on what you’ve missed so far:

BLFA Semi-Final: Monarch 1 – 4 EasyJet

BLFA Semi-Final: Ryanair 2 – 3 Flybe

BLFA Round One: Thomson 1 – 4 Easyjet

BLFA Round One: BMI Baby 1 – 4 Monarch

BLFA Round One: Aer Lingus 2 – 3 Flybe

BLFA Round One: Ryanair 3 – 2 Jet2

BeMoreEco Launches Battle of the Low Fares Airline

The battle of the low-fares airlines green credentials is really heating up now. Today we have the first of the semi-finals between Ryanair and Flybe. Which is the greener low-fares airline? Lets find out.

The Basics:

Ryanair

Following the deregulation of the European air industry, Ryanair attacked the market with colossal speed. They pioneered the low-fares airline concept in Europe and have witnessed an ever increasing number of passengers. Ryanair is now the 3rd largest airline in Europe.

Flybe

Flybe, formerly Jersey European Airways, has not grown as quickly as other airlines. It’s only in the past 6 years that company has come onto the scene. First it was renamed British European in 2000, and then Flybe in 2002 with a repositioning as a low-fares aline. In 2007 Flybe took over BA Connect, British Airway’s’ regional service. BA currently owns 15% of the company.

Head to Head

So, we’ve had a big upset here, as Flybe skips past Ryanair to reach the finals of the Battle of the Low-Fares Airlines. Flybe will be up against either Monarch or Easyjet. Who will be the UK’s greenest low-fares airline? Time will tell.

The second semi-final will take place on Thursday.

Catch up on what you’ve missed so far:

BLFA Round One: Thomson 1 – 4 Easyjet

BLFA Round One: BMI Baby 1 – 4 Monarch

BLFA Round One: Aer Lingus 2 – 3 Flybe

BLFA Round One: Ryanair 3 – 2 Jet2

BeMoreEco Launches Battle of the Low Fares Airline

It’s the final day of round one, and it’s about to get serious. We’ve got Thomson Fly up against low-fare giants EasyJet. What happened to Air-Southwest you ask? Simple, they’re just not in the same league. Air Southwest has an airline of just 5 aircraft, Thomson Fly is many times more popular. So we’ve decided to use Thomson Fly instead. Who has the greenest credentials? Lets find out.

The Basics:

Thomson Fly

You might better remember Thomson Fly as Britannia Airways. Thomson Fly traces it’s foundations back to 1962, and was known as Britannia until 2004. Then, like other airlines it repositioned itself into the low-fares market and has been competing there ever since. It’s not the fastest growing airline, but it is popular for being on-time and has expanded significantly in the past few years.

EasyJet

Wasn’t Airline a great program? It’s probably annoying that it did so much to promote EasyJet at the time. EasyJet is Ryanair’s biggest competitor and has remained at the forefront of the low-cost airline movement. Most Recently EasyJet has purchased GO, expanded into Gatwick Airport and plans to move in to Manchester too.

Head to Head

So, perhaps it isn’t a great surprise that EasyJet have come through here. Becoming the more environmentally-aware airline of the two big ones is a natural step for EasyJet to take. It will now be interesting to see just how far the airline can go in this competition.

They will be next up against Monarch this coming Thursday.

Catch up on what you’ve missed so far:

BLFA Round One: BMI Baby 1 – 4 Monarch

BLFA Round One: Aer Lingus 2 – 3 Flybe

BLFA Round One: Ryanair 3 – 2 Jet2

BeMoreEco Launches Battle of the Low Fares Airline

It’s day 3 in our great battle of the low-fares airline. Each day we put the green credentials of two airlines head to head, with one emerging victories. So far we’ve seen Ryanair defeat Jet2 and Flybe defeat Aer Lingus. Today we’re going to pit BMI Baby against Monarch to see who will be third airline to advance into the semi-finals.

BMI Baby (The airline with tiny fares)

BMI Baby is another newcomer to the scene, and a subsidiary of East Midlands Airways. BMI Baby began flights from East Midlands airport and quickly found a profitable niche across the midlands and up to Manchester. Today it primarily focuses on flights to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Belfast and Ireland, and is proving popular with both casual holidays and business travellers.

Monarch (The low fares airline that cares)

Monarch Airlines has grown steadily since it’s inception 41 years ago. From it’s original base in Luton the airline expanded to include Gatwick, Glasgow and Manchester within the UK, and several destinations abroad. It was not until 2004 that Monarch repositioned itself as a low-fares airline going head-to-head with Easjet and Ryanair. Monarch currently has it’s sight site on launching a low-fares service to destinations in North America.

Head to Head

Monarch advance into the semi-finals with a comprehensive thumping of BMI Baby’s absent green credentials. Will they face a sterner test in the next round? Most probably. They will be up against the greenest airline between Air SouthWest and EasyJet.

Catch up on what you’ve missed so far:

BLFA Round One: Aer Lingus -vs- Flybe

BLFA Round One: Ryanair -vs- Jet2

BeMoreEco Launches Battle of the Low Fares Airline

So yesterday Ryanair took down Jet2, but only just. Now it’s time to see who Ryanair will be up against in the next round. Will it be their Irish compatriots, Aer Lingus, or will Flybe’s green credentials reign supreme.

Lets take a look at the basics:

Aer Lingus

Aer Lingus is one of the world’s oldest airlines. The company has largely been under control of the Irish government and up to the 1990s offered services primarily to Irish passengers. However, since surviving the airline troubles of 2001, Aer Lingus has repositioned itself to compete with low-fares airlines like Ryanair and Easyjet. Most recently it was the subject of a takeover bid from Ryanair. The bid was blocked by the European Commission in 2007, buy Ryanair still owns a significant 29% stake in the company.

Flybe

Flybe, formerly Jersey European Airways, has not grown as quickly as other airlines. It’s only in the past 6 years that company has come onto the scene. First it was renamed British European in 2000, and then Flybe in 2002 with a repositioning as a low-fares aline. In 2007 Flybe took over BA Connect, British Airway’s’ regional service. BA currently owns 15% of the company.

Head to Head

So Flybe’s green initiatives and carbon offsetting seal the victory against Aer Lingus. This means we have Flybe against Ryanair in the first semi-final next week.

On Friday we will see BMI Baby against Fly Monarch to see who will become the third team to advance to the semi-finals.

Catch up on what you’ve missed so far:

BLFA Round One: Aer Lingus 2 – 3 Flybe

BLFA Round One: Ryanair 3 – 2 Jet2

BeMoreEco Launches Battle of the Low Fares Airline

The Battle of the Low-Fares Airlines (BLFA) begins today with Ryanair against Jet2. On paper this is a no-brainer. Ryanair is many times the size of Jet2, has been operating much longer and should easily have the resources to offer the greener airline. But is that the case? Jet2 is a smaller and potentially more nubile competitor. It’s the sort of company that might be pioneering many great strategies under Ryanair’s radar. Lets look at the basics:

Ryanair

Following the deregulation of the European air industry, Ryanair attacked the market with collosal speed. They pioneered the low-fares airline concept in Europe and have witnessed an ever increasing number of passengers. Ryanair is now the 3rd largest airline in Europe.

Jet2

Jet2 is a Leeds-based British low-fares airline. Despite being a late-entrant into the low-fares airline industry, Jet2 has grown quickly from 600,000 passengers in 2003 to 3.2m in 2007. This has coincided with a steady expansion of destinations.

Head to Head

RyanAir’s modern aircraft fleet, passenger load and better regional reward the airline with a narrow victory over Jet2. It was a closer competition than some might expect, RyanAir’s flaws in carbon-offsetting and lack of green initiatives might well cost them the next round.

RyanAir will be up against the winner of home-rivals Aer Lingus and newcomers, FlyBe.

It’s going to be war. Over the next three weeks we’re going to be pitting 8 of the UK’s most popular low cost airlines against each other in a battle of their green credentials. Judging by some of the competition already, it’s going to be brutal. The 8 airlines are: RyanAir, EasyJet, Aer Lingus, BMIBaby, Fly Monarch, Jet2, FlyBe and Air SouthWest.

How it works:

Like any great battle, we have a few rules. First, each airline has been drawn at random into the brackets below. It’s single elimination, the winners of one match will play the winners of the odds-numbered matches will play the winners of the even numbered (sorry, my html skills really let me down). Matches will be judged against a five category criteria. One point for being better in that category than the opposing airline.

The Five Categories:

There they will judged by five core categories (Efficiency, Initiatives, ). There are no scores, just a winner in each category. Whoever wins most of the five categories will win the match. These five categories are:

Carbon Offsetting: What carbon offsetting scheme does the Airline have in place? How much effort are they putting into it? How successful has it been? Is it easy to offset your flight when you book online?

Age of Aircrafts: The A380s are more efficient than the older models. How old is the technology and aircrafts the airline is using?

Passenger Load: Are many flights being taken half-empty? What a waste? What about baggage and average CO2 produced per person?

Green Initiatives: What green initiatives has the airline invested in? What are they pushing forward? What groups and associations are they part of?

Locations and Destinations: What locations and destinations do they fly to? How do these effect the environment? What impact are they having? Are they spending a lot of time circling the runway of a busy airport?

First Round Brackets:

RyanAir vs. Jet2 (Tuesday 17th)

Aer Lingus vs. FlyBe (Wednesday 18th)

BMI Baby vs. Fly Monarch (Thursday 19th)

Air SouthWest vs. EasyJet (Saturday 21st)

May the greenest airline low-fares airline win.