In an effort to rally businesses and consumers, United Airlines launched its Ventures Sustainable Flight Fund on Tuesday, February 21. The first-of-its-kind investment in the US is designed to support start-ups focused on decarbonising air travel.
In another first among US airlines, anyone who buys a ticket on the United website or app now has the option to contribute to supplement United's investment in the fund. The first 10 000 people who choose to contribute will each receive 500 MileagePlus Miles as well.
In addition, on United.com and the United app, users can see an estimate of each flight's carbon footprint in their search. Green shading will indicate a lower-carbon option on a per economy seat passenger basis in a chosen itinerary.
The fund starts with more than US$100m (R1,82bn) in investments from United and its partners, Air Canada, Boeing, GE Aerospace, JPMorgan Chase, and Honeywell.
A flight's carbon footprint is measured in kg CO2e (kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent) and United's estimates, which could differ from actual flight emissions, are based on aircraft type, flying time, seat capacity, and the number of people and cargo on a given flight.
“Solving climate change is doable but it requires hard work and real leadership," says United CEO, Scott Kirby. "This fund is unique. It's not about offsets or things that are just greenwashing. Instead, we're creating a system that drives investment to build a new industry around sustainable aviation fuel, essentially from scratch. That's the only way we can actually decarbonise aviation."
