The Lufthansa Group will begin offering fares that already have carbon offsetting options built-in starting February 15, 2023. 

Lufthansa Group’s “Green Fares” began as a limited test run in August 2022, and was only available on flights to environmentally conscious Scandinavia by Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian Airlines and Brussels Airlines.  

But the experiment must have been successful, because the Lufthansa Group is now rolling out its Green Fares across its whole European network and some North African destinations. The new fares will also be issued across the group’s whole ensemble of airline brands, including Edelweiss, Eurowings Discover and Air Dolomiti. 

What are “Green Fares”? 

The new branded fare has carbon-mitigation options built-in, allowing customers to offset their flight emissions with 20% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and 80% through the use of carbon offsets. 

A number of airlines have been adding one or both of these options as voluntary offsets at some point during the booking process. For example, by allowing passengers to top up their fares so that the airline can then buy more of the pricier sustainable aviation fuel, or by contributing to reforestation or carbon sequestration projects. Unlike other carbon mitigation options in the market, the traveller won’t have to think much to make the green choice, since the whole SAF and offsetting option it will be ready off-the-shelf. The novelty is that the Green Fares simplify the process while, in principle, mitigating the carbon footprint of that trip in its entirety. 

The new fares will be available for travellers to book starting February 15, 2023, on both economy and business class flights, where they will go by the respective names of “Economy Green” and “Business Green”. They will also include other perks such as extra status miles, flexible rebooking options and other benefits already included in the Economy Classic or Business Saver fares.