If you’re trying to reduce your carbon footprint and ensure that you also take eco-friendly vacations, you may be searching for the perfect sustainable getaway in far off lands. However, have you stopped to think about the best way to get there? Cheaptickets.com has come up with a list of the top five eco-friendly airlines, so that you don’t have to feel guilty about hopping a jet plane, so you don’t feel like you have to repent after every flight. The aviation industry is also doing its part to lower its carbon wingprint, including producing new aircraft that are significantly quieter and 70 percent more fuel efficient than 40 years ago, and 20 percent better than 10 years ago. Did you know that aviation produces only 2 percent of the world’s human-made emissions of carbon dioxide, or that air transport accounts for only 3 percent of CO2 emissions in the European Union, compared with almost 40 percent for the energy industries? In addition, estimates are that more than 95 percent of a plane can be recycled, either for spare parts or melting down and repurposing the metal. As the aviation industry conditions to seek out new ways to fly Green skies, both Boeing and Airbus are creating a new generation of planes that have fuel consumptions of three liters per 100 passenger kilometers, which is more efficient than a compact car. So what are cheaptickets.com top 5 Green Airlines?
- Continental Airlines: Aircraft efficiency has improved by 80 percent between the 1960s and 1990s.
- British Airways: With its latest deal with the Solena Group, the airline will produce 16 million gallons of eco-friendly bio fuel derived from waste products by 2014.
- Southwest Airlines: Has invested $175 million towards Required Navigational Performance, the next generation of avionics technology that allows planes to reduce fuel usage by optimizing flight paths.
- Virgin Atlantic: Richard Branson’s airline is one of the few carriers to commit to recycling on board waste, and Branson has pledged more than £2 billion to fight global warming over the next decade.
- Qatar Airways: The airline ran the first commercial passenger powered by natural gas derived fuel.

