British Airways is condemned today by MPs for a “derisory” performance in encouraging customers to mitigate the environmental damage of flights.

The airline boasts that it was the first to launch a scheme letting passengers offset their carbon dioxide emissions by paying to support energy-saving schemes abroad. But it is selling only enough offsets per year to neutralise the damage caused by four return flights from London to New York by a 777 jet.

“How many do you do per week to New York?” Tim Yeo, the chairman of the Environmental Audit Committee demanded of BA’s company secretary, Alan Buchanan, during a Commons investigation. “Rather more than that,” Mr Buchanan replied. He admitted that there were 50 a week.

The committee accuses the national carrier of hiding the offset deal from customers, possibly because the company fears that they would fly less if they learnt about the cost to the environment. The Times rang BA booking offices in three countries and found that none of those answering the phone was familiar with offsetting, even though the scheme was launched with a fanfare in 2005. A saleswoman in BA’s New York office had never heard of a carbon offset and asked whether it was a device that the passenger wanted to carry in his luggage.

An operator in Cyprus was equally stumped when asked about offsetting the damage caused by a flight and suggested: “You need to speak to the airport about that.” An English tele-saleswoman said: “I have not had that request before”, put The Timeson hold for several minutes, and then said that offsetting had to be done over the internet. However, BA’s website was condemned by the committee for making it difficult for customers to find the offsetting programme. There is no mention of it on the home page where customers are encouraged to book flights, although the airline does find space for an advertisement to “clock up BA Miles faster”.

The Times had to click through four pages before discovering the order form. It can also be accessed by entering “carbon” in the search engine but that requires prior knowledge by the customer. The Tory MP Nick Hurd confronted Mr Buchanan during the inquiry, saying: “The reason why there is such low take-up of your scheme is because no one knows about it. I am a customer of British Airways and I have tried five times to engage a member of staff at check-in, which is the natural point to ask about this, and was met with a completely blank expression on every occasion.”

Mr Yeo described BA’s performance as scandalous. He told The Times:“BA is the industry leader in this country. We would hope they would set a good example.” He noted that, on short-haul flights between England and Scot-land, BA was competing with trains and may fear customers switching to rail as a less damaging mode of transport.

MPs welcomed Virgin Atlantic’s offsetting launch due later this year and praised Silverjet, the business-only airline, which buys offsets so that it can claim to be “carbon neutral”.

The MPs’ report on the voluntary carbon offset market accuses airlines of walking away from government talks about better offsetting in a “confected outrage” over air duty rises.

BA said: “Customer response has not been as strong as we would have hoped. We are in the process of up-grading the way in which the offset scheme will work and hope that these improvements will go live in the near future. We are fully committed to reducing our impact on the environment and this week have announced a new target to further improve our fuel efficiency by 25 per cent by 2025.”

Jeff Gazzard, of the GreenSkies Alliance, an environmental group, said: “BA have been found out. MPs completely saw through the PR gimmick that this carbon-offset scam was.”

Green recruit

A reporter rang BA’s New York office to book a return flight to London:

The Times Is there a way that I can offset my carbon from the flight?
BA I’m sorry? Is there a way . . .
The Times . . . I can offset the carbon that’s emitted during the flight?
BA I’m very sorry. I haven’t a clue what you are saying. Is there any way you can offset . . ?
The Times . . . The carbon emissions when I fly over the Atlantic. Because of climate change, I would like to offset any carbon from the flight.
BA What is that? Is that a device that you would take on to the aircraft?
The Times No. I think some airlines allow you to pay an extra amount of money and then you offset the carbon that’s emitted into the atmosphere and causes global warming
BA Oh. No, Sir. BA does not offer that.

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