Email to Willie Walsh - Chief Exec of BA

Dear Mr Walsh,

An exchange of emails between ourselves and Flying Matters has demonstrated that key environmental and climate change claims made on their web site are completely without foundation and totally false. Their principle claims amongst others, are

• The industry is committed to improving fuel efficiency of new planes by 50% by 2020.
• The industry is committed to getting emissions down to 2000 levels by 2050 despite a trebling of air passengers.

As an airline executive you will immediately recognize that both of these claims are false. To meet the first the claim, Airbus and Boeing would have to replace production of the B787 and A380 with some as yet undesigned plane. To meet the second claim, aviation emissions on all planes would have to be a mere 22% of current planes and this could only be achieved by breaking the laws of physics.

Your organization funds Flying Matters to lobby on your behalf, and as you are aware they have been extremely successful in getting pro-aviation policies to be passed at local and national government level as well as at EU level. Your organization has therefore gained as a result of these false claims.

This is an extremely serious matter, especially in light of the following facts:

• Aviation emissions are doubling every 17 years
• Global Emissions are doubling every 21 years
• Atmospheric CO2 is increasing more rapidly than the worst case scenario of the IPCC report.

We are sure that you will recognize that it is not in your company’s interest to be associated with Flying Matters in these circumstances or with their false claims. We therefore demand that you either formally renounce these claims or specify how BA can meet them.

We have asked for similar from Flying Matters. If we fail to get an appropriate response we will report them to the Serious Fraud Office along with other companies that have profiteered from their false claims.

We expect your repsone by 9:00am Thursday 18th November, at which point we will report the matter to the Serious Fraud Office.

Yours sincerely,

Kevin Lister