The advert, which aired last November, flagged the airline’s plan to operate a flight from London to New York powered entirely by non-standard jet fuel.
It said: “On the 28 November, Virgin Atlantic’s Flight 100 will take to the skies on our unique flight mission from London Heathrow to JFK to become the world’s first commercial airline to fly transatlantic on 100% sustainable aviation fuel.”
The flight was a one-off after the Department for Transport laid down a challenge to the UK’s airline sector to operate the first net zero transatlantic flight.
Five complainants said the claim “100% sustainable aviation fuel” gave a "misleading impression" of the fuel’s environmental impact and challenged whether it could be substantiated.
Complaints upheld
In reply, Virgin said the ad’s wording mirrored the terms used by the DfT in its competition invitation.
Virgin told the ASA it did not think listeners would understand the ad to mean the fuel used for Flight 100 was derived from completely sustainable sources, did not generate CO2 or other emissions and that over its full lifecycle had no adverse environmental impacts.
In its submission to the ASA, the airline said the ad did not claim the fuel was 100% sustainable, arguing it only described how the flight was powered exclusively by sustainable aviation fuel.
Virgin undertook a survey following the complaints, which found “the majority” understood the 100% claim related to the proportion of sustainable fuel used.
However, the ASA considered “that while many listeners would understand from the ad that Flight 100 had, uniquely, flown transatlantic using only sustainable aviation fuel, a significant proportion would understand the claim ‘100% sustainable aviation fuel’ to mean that the fuel used was 100% sustainable” and upheld the complaints.
The ASA told the carrier to ensure future ads referring to sustainable aviation fuel included qualifying information which explained the environmental impact.
A Virgin Atlantic spokesperson said the carrier was “disappointed” with the decision: “SAF is a term used globally by industry and government for fossil-alternative aviation fuels that adhere to specific sustainability criteria," they said.
"The radio advert for Flight 100 used SAF and other factually accurate wording to share that the flight would be operated as a single non-commercial flight using 100% SAF.”
Virgin Atlantic published its findings from Flight 100 earlier this year.
