Greenwashing Flights
Good morning, readers. I liked biology growing up. I tell you that not because I think you should know, but as a way to explain why I'm throwing symbiotic relationships at you down below. That's a reference to Google and Booking.com. We've also got some greenwashing claims out of the U.K. and another look at the topic of pilot mental health. On the itinerary today:
Google, Booking.com, and AI
U.K. ad watchdog bans airlines ads
Pilot mental health takes center stage
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Google, Booking, and Travel AI
Like oxpeckers and zebras, coral and algae and Donald Trump and the media, so too are Google and Booking Holdings. That is to say, they are all great examples of symbiotic relationships.
Though not without tensions, the search giant and booking platform have had a long and mutually beneficial partnership. Google parent Alphabet gets billions of dollars from Booking’s ads, and Booking benefits from all of the customers Google sends its way. So what happens if, or is it when, Google eventually releases a “next-gen travel assistant.” Would travelers use that first before Booking’s own tools?
Booking CFO David Goulden, when asked that very question at an investor conference on Wednesday, argued that Google will stick with travel advertising and won’t invade its turf and risk that symbiosis.
Goulden said he’s sure Google will still want to monetize its search business, and make it attractive for large customers like Booking, which is one of Google’s largest advertisers.
The CFO noted that Booking has been rolling out its own travel assistant tools, adding “so I’m sure as their search experience evolves, we’ll evolve with them as we’ve done over many years.”
Booking Holdings already has a variety of AI travel assistant tools released by its various brands, including Booking.com, Priceline, Kayak and OpenTable. On the other hand, Google’s AI chatbot Bard offers travel extensions with real-time availability for hotels and airlines.
“We’ll have a great planning tool as well, but that’s probably where [Google will] stop because what these travel systems won’t have is the full depth of capability that we as an online travel agent have,” Goulden said. “We have active relationships with over 3 million properties around the world in the accommodation space where we have real-time availability.
Alphabet obviously has many advantages over Booking given its current grip on search and its massive resources, but Goulden argued for Booking’s built-in advantages.
Greenwashing Leads to U.K. Ad Ban
Air France, Lufthansa and Etihad got called out for “greenwashing” by the U.K.’s Advertising Standards Authority in a trio of rulings on Wednesday, with the regulator finding that Google ads from the airlines had given “a misleading impression” of their environmental impact.
Etihad’s ad juxtaposed the phrase “total peace of mind” with “environmental advocacy,” which caught the eye of the U.K. advertising watchdog.
“We had not seen any evidence that they were engaged in such advocacy, or that they actively worked to protect the environment in a way that meant consumers could use their services with ‘Total Peace Of Mind’ with regard to the environmental impact of doing so,” the ASA said in its ruling.
Lufthansa’s ad highlighted “Fly more sustainably” in reference to its “green fares” that it claimed reduce CO2 emissions by 20%. But the ASA said the Lufthansa ad failed to clarify how passengers could fly more sustainably.
The ASA also found Air France’s use of the phrases “Air France is committed to protecting the environment” and “travel better and sustainably” was misleading.
Etihad and Lufthansa took down the ads following the ruling. The ASA said Air France “did not provide a substantive response” to its ruling. The carrier said the ad was made by an artificial intelligence tool, based on a few keywords.
“Greenwashing,” when companies make inflated claims about their environmental friendliness, is not new to the airline industry.
European regulatory agencies have slammed airlines over ads that tout their commitment to protecting the environment.
In the U.S., Delta Air Lines faced a class action lawsuit in California after it claimed it was the world’s “first carbon neutral airline.” Delta asked a federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit in August, according to Reuters.
‘Bureaucratic Nightmare’ Needs Fixing
Pilot mental health took center stage at an event in Washington held by the National Transportation Safety Board. The consensus of those who spoke and that were in attendance was that the costs of both being out of work and receiving treatment all push individuals towards either not reporting mental health issues or self-medicating.
“There’s a culture right now, which is not surprising to me, that you either lie or you seek help,” said Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, which held the event in Washington, D.C. “We can’t have that. That’s not safety.”
The FAA’s required psychiatric evaluations to return to work can cost thousands of dollars and are not covered by insurance. Applications for those certificates have surged in recent years.
“The wave hit us,” said Penny Giovanetti, director of the medical specialties division at the FAA, of the requests for medical certificates from pilots receiving mental health treatment. That wave has come in just the past few years as the agency has faced numerous challenges from the pandemic, a leadership change, and staffing issues.
Giovanetti emphasized that the FAA is aware of and addressing the issues. She is “optimistic” that processing times will improve — just not soon due to a “horrendous” backlog.
“It is a very cumbersome federal bureaucratic nightmare,” is how Homendy described the process.
The longstanding issues around pilot mental health became acutely apparently in October after an Alaska Airlines pilot nearly brought down a plane in while suffering a mental health crisis.
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