Abu Dhabi (TAN): Etihad Airways operated an Abu Dhabi-Brisbane flight earlier this week without any single-use plastic on board. The airline said it was the first in the region to do it.
EY484 left Abu Dhabi on April 21 and landed in Brisbane on April 22, World Earth Day. This part of the airline’s efforts to care for the environment. Etihad has pledged to reduce single-use plastic usage by 80 per cent not just in-flight, but across the entire organisation by the end of 2022.
“Inaugurating 2019 with the locally sourced biofuel flight and the operation of the longest single-use plastic free flight are testament to our commitment to leading effective change towards sustainability,” Etihad Aviation Group chairman Mohamed Mubarak Fadhel Al Mazrouei said.
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Last year, the United Nations called for global action to beat plastic pollution, saying 400 million tonnes of plastics are produced every year, 63 per cent of which are intended for single-use. Governments around the world are starting to ban single-use plastics.
Etihad Aviation Group CEO Tony Douglas said: “We discovered we could remove 27 million single-use plastic lids from our inflight service a year and, as a leading airline, it’s our responsibility to act on this, to challenge industry standards and work with suppliers who provide lower impact alternatives.”
Etihad worked with suppliers to ensure products were not wrapped in single-use plastics. For others, more innovative products had to be sourced including Cupffee’s, edible coffee cups, made entirely out of natural grain products.
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Etihad identified over 95 single-use plastic products used across aircraft cabins, most of which were replaced with eco-friendly alternatives including cups, cutlery, dishes, headset bags, cart seals and toothbrushes. Once removed from this flight, Etihad prevented over 50 kilograms of plastics from being landfilled. Where suitable replacements could not be sourced, these items were not loaded, the airline said in a statement.
Etihad has additionally committed to remove up to 20 per cent of the single-use plastic items on board by 1 June 2019. By the end of this year, Etihad will have removed 100 tonnes of single-use plastics from its inflight service.
“We are making this promise not only for the environment but also for the wider community. Our guests and employees are largely responsible for facilitating this positive change, as they brought to our attention the effect plastics within our industry have on landfills, waterways and our oceans, contaminating our soil and water,” Douglas said.
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