Air NZ is now led by a chap who used to work at Walmart. But its pricing on domestic routes is anything like the budget basement prices that made Walmart successful in the US. So its certainly no Air Walmart, at least when it comes to buying tickets. Not only does it have monopoly powers on domestic routes, Air NZ also garnered international publicity when it stated that it was committed to a specified reduction in its emissions by 2030. James Shaw, the former Green Party Leader, tied his whole political career to the idea that such targets were vital for nations and companies. Now he's left politics, Shaw sits on the "Sustainability Advisory Panel" of Air NZ. Within a short time of him getting that lovely position, the airline announced it was dumping its emissions targets. Putting leading figures from the Green movement onto one's corporate website by giving them formal roles to bolster sales by branding and marketing an airline as "Green" when that same airline is only pretending to be green, and now dumps its commitments, goes by a name. It is called "Greenwashing". Yesterday in the UK, Virgin was charged with "misleading advertising" by the Advertising Standards Board for saying it ran a "100% sustainable flight" when that was not true. In NZ an expert on environmental matters was quoted by Radio NZ as saying that Air NZ's targets were never "realistic". Isn't it time the likes of Otago University, which has not told the truth about it being in the top 1% of Universities in the world, in order to boost student numbers, and Air NZ, which stated it was committed to an emissions reduction path and put former Green Party Leader Shaw on its website and Advisory Panel to boost sales, when its claims were also hot air, are similarly charged for making up advertising claims?
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