So one of Delta Air Lines’ chief muftis spoke at the beginning of the session: “Let’s think big.” A few had come to the “Delta Goes Green Workshop”: the Chief Customer Experience Officer, for example, the Vice President of Sustainability, the Master of Media and Public Relations or something like that. “How can we become more sustainable?” the chief mufti asked. Everything is allowed on the table, there should be no taboos.
A sustainability guy – whose job title is even longer than this inset – then looked at his laptop and said: “How about we donate 10 percent of our profits to offset emissions; a bit like the ‘One Percent for the Planet’ alliance ‘ power.” The group whispered, one shouted: “In 2019 alone that would have been a donation of almost 500 million!”, whereupon the terms “Corona crisis!”, “Dreamer!”, “Communist!” could be heard clearly. But the sustainability man went on, “and then we could try to convince all the other members of the Sky Team from Aeroflot to Xiamen Airlines as well.” Maybe you could even invest in trains and buses.
The chief mufti nodded benevolently. “Thanks for the input, but what we really need is something like this Pre-Kote paint in 2008, which won us an environmental award, but most importantly, it saved us money.” Well, one of the outrageously expensive Boston consultants said, you can use first-class bed linen made from recycled PET bottles. “Yes, great,” agreed another, “and have the toiletry bags made in an emerging country, by hand!” “Bamboo cutlery!” shouted a third, and the Boston consultant said, “And rid the wine of the plastic!”
“What the…” the sustainability man was about to rant. But then he remembered that Delta was paying him, not Greenpeace – and he quietly closed his laptop. “Superbe!” said one of the media specialists, who has always wanted to appear quite francophile ever since he did an internship at Air France.
Yes, that’s exactly what it must have been, or something like that, which is why Delta’s PR agency recently sent out an email saying that they are stepping up efforts to create a more sustainable future for air travel: with toiletry bags handmade in Mexico, bamboo cutlery in the First Class, bedding made from plastic and – no joke – top-quality wines in aluminum cans.