We are irregular air travellers, however when we do fly, we have Virgin Blue as our airline of choice. We do this for a number of reasons; we've always been fans of Sir Richard Branson and his cavalier and irreverent attitude to business; it's a long held Australian tradition to support the underdog, and as new entrants into the domestic air travel market here, they fit that bill; and recently Virgin Blue has commenced a regular service to our regional centre of Port Macquarie, finally giving rival Qantas some competition on this sector.
This last week my wife Therese flew from Port Macquarie to Melbourne and return on Virgin Blue, and in the process collected and read the current issue of the in-flight magazine, Voyeur, proudly published by specialist advertising/publishing house, Text Pacific.
The July 2008 issue of Voyeur is a special Green Issue, and amongst other things, the issue allows advertisers to on-goingly offset carbon emissions associated with publishing their advertisements by way of payment of an additional fee that goes to purchasing certified carbon credits.We admire Virgin Blue and their associated business partners for the lead that they take in the green arena, and this initiative is to be applauded. The more of these type of triple bottom-line options that exist the better off we will all be. Virgin Blue have a similar program set up for when you purchase your air travel ticket with them, offsetting the greenhouse gas emissions that your travel will create.
In his opening piece for this issue, Virgin Blue CEO Brett Godfrey claimed the reason for the issue was - "we are trying to do our bit for the environment, and we hope this special 'green' issue of Voyeur will encourage you to do the same".
However, it is clear that not all Text Pacific's journalistic staff were aligned with that initiative.