Montreal, March 9, 2011
Air Transat, a business unit of Transat A.T. Inc., is proud to announce that it has been ranked first worldwide in a new environmental performance indicator called “Atmosfair Airline Index,” in the long-haul category. The announcement was made today by the German NGO Atmosfair at the ITB International Tourism Fair in Berlin. Air Transat also placed third in the overall ranking of the 100 largest international airlines.
“We are very proud to hold first place among airlines in the long-haul category and third place in the overall ranking,” said Allen B. Graham, President and Chief Executive Officer of Air Transat. “This independent evaluation confirms the effectiveness of our management processes and of the various environmental initiatives we have taken in the last few years, especially as regards our fuel management program and our aircraft maintenance. There remains plenty to do, but we are definitely on the right rack.”
According to Atmosfair (www.atmosfair.de), a non-profit organization founded in 2004 by Forum Anders Reisen and Germanwatch, the new index will help travellers who are sensitive to environmental considerations choose airlines based on their CO2 emission levels. One hundred airlines were evaluated and given “efficiency points” from zero to 100. The airlines that stood out are those with modern fleets adapted to their routes, high numbers of seats and high load factors.
Transat recently published its second annual Corporate Responsibility Report, which provides an account of the organization’s sustained commitment to taking responsible actions with all its stakeholders. To find out more about sustainable development initiatives by Transat and Air Transat, visit www.resp.transat.com.
About Air Transat
Air Transat is Canada’s leading holiday travel airline. Every year, it carries some 3 million passengers to nearly 60 destinations in 25 countries aboard its fleet of Airbus wide-body jets. The company employs approximately 2,000 people. Air Transat is a business unit of Transat A.T. Inc., an integrated international tour operator with more than 60 destination countries and that distributes products in over 50 countries.