German tour operator DER Touristik has moved forward with its sustainability plans after purchasing sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from Lufthansa to offer more climate-friendly air travel to its customers.
DER Touristik will be offering the use of SAF at no extra charge to its customers for selected tours in its DERTOUR catalogue from September, including a 20% mix to be used on a series of Lufthansa round trips in 2024.
DER Touristik Central Europe CEO Dr Ingo Burmester said that the company saw more sustainable flying as a key part of making tourism more climate-friendly: “As a tour operator and flight broker, we see it as our responsibility to get involved in this area.
“As an industry, we can only achieve change by joining forces and standing shoulder to shoulder with long-standing, trustworthy partners such as the Lufthansa Group.”
Along with offering the SAF flights to their customers, Lufthansa and DER Touristik will also be looking to train travel agency partners on the technology, including by putting on an “expert study trip” to Ireland.
Frank Naeve, senior vice-president of global markets and stations for the Lufthansa Group, said: “We are very pleased to have DER Touristik as a cooperation partner at our side who is committed to the sustainable transformation of the travel industry, who is breaking new ground together with us and who is sensitising its customers to forward-looking travel offers.”
The partnership continues a climate and sustainability interest from Lufthansa, which recently began converting one of its Airbus A350-900s into a climate research station that will be gathering data to inform climate models.
The Lufthansa Group set itself a target of achieving net zero by 2050, in line with the wider aviation industry, and of halving its emissions by the end of this decade.
