The ad, which ran last June, featured an aircraft with the underside replaced by an image of the Earth, alongside the slogan "Lufthansa Group. Connecting the world. Protecting its future."
"We considered the claim was likely to be understood by consumers to mean that Lufthansa had already taken significant mitigating steps to ensure that the net environmental impact of their business was not harmful," the Advertising Standards Authority said in a statement, asking it to make clear the basis for any future claims.
Air travel produced "high levels" of both carbon dioxide and non-CO2 emissions that made a "substantial" contribution to climate change, the regulator said, adding many of Lufthansa's initiatives would deliver results only after years or decades.
Approached by AFP, Lufthansa expressed regret that its poster advert campaign "could have given a misleading impression".
It argued that the ad's purpose was to make consumers aware of how the airline was addressing the need to reduce the impact of flying on the environment.
But the ASA insisted that the carrier could not substantiate what it described as the poster's "absolute green" claim.
"We... understood that there were currently no environmental initiatives or commercially viable technologies in the aviation industry which would substantiate the absolute green claim, 'Protecting its future', as we considered consumers would interpret it.
"We concluded that, because the basis of the claim had not been made clear and it had not been adequately substantiated, the ad breached the (ASA) code.
It said it told Lufthansa that the basis of future environmental claims was made clear and did not give a misleading impression of the impact caused by travelling with the airline.
Lufthansa, which is targeting carbon neutrality by 2050, has forecast it will halve CO2 emissions by 2030 compared to 2019.
Major companies are frequently accused of "greenwashing" by environmentalists, who call out corporate efforts to promote often spurious environmental measures to boost their reputation.
In a recent development in Ireland, consumer protection authorities are probing Tesco over herbal teabags the UK supermarket giant claimed were "biodegradable".
A team of researchers from University College Cork filed a complaint last month after finding the teabags were intact after being buried in soil for one year.
Tesco however stated that the teabags were instead designed for "industrial composting" via local authorities' food bin collections.
Airline websites swamped as Hong Kong ticket giveaway takes off
Hong Kong (AFP) March 1, 2023 -
People hoping to take advantage of a Hong Kong scheme to give away half a million free airline tickets faced hours-long online queues on Wednesday, as the Asian financial hub bids to woo tourists back.
The city government last month launched a campaign to reboot its reputation as "Asia's world city", after years of strict pandemic-related travel restrictions and a crackdown on political dissent.
On Wednesday, Hong Kong became one of the last places in the world to drop its outdoor mask mandate, which city leader John Lee said was a sign it was "resuming normalcy".
Tourism once accounted for nearly five percent of the city's economy, but visitor figures plunged last year to 600,000 -- less than one percent of 2018 levels.
Hong Kong-based carriers Cathay Pacific and Hong Kong Airlines were the first companies to launch the government-backed "Hello, Hong Kong" ticket giveaway, which will roll out over several months.
Social media users complained of long online queues to register, and an AFP reporter encountered wait times of more than two hours on the Hong Kong Airlines website.
More than 55,000 users were waiting to access the offer on the Cathay Pacific website, according to the reporter.
Cathay Pacific said it had allocated all 17,400 round-trip tickets from Thailand to Hong Kong within the first hour of the giveaway, despite it being scheduled to last seven days.
"We are very encouraged by the enthusiastic response," the airline told AFP, adding that its website had functioned well during the registration period.
The first stage of the giveaway offered round-trip flights from Southeast Asia. Hong Kong residents will be eligible for a separate campaign for 80,000 tickets to be rolled out in July.
Hong Kong once had one of the globe's busiest and best-connected airports, but travel came to a virtual standstill when the city imposed strict travel restrictions and quarantine requirements as part of China's zero-Covid doctrine.
The restrictions helped the city remain largely virus-free, until a deadly Omicron outbreak at the start of 2022 that killed more than 9,000 people.
The city has now lifted most curbs, but, as of January, about 20 regional Asian airlines were unable to restart services to the city due to labour shortages.
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