"Climate awareness and flying are not contradictory"

Flyla wants to make flying appealing to an otherwise climate-conscious generation of students. In this interview, new CEO Ben Shaw explains why it can be cool and green to fly.

Families in a vacation mood, business travelers, tourists from foreign countries. At the gates of German airports, a wide variety of travelers crowd into the airlines' planes. But on average, around a fifth of the seats on the plane remain empty. Flyla wants to close these gaps with discounted tickets for a target group that might not otherwise be able to afford to travel - namely students. However, they are actually rather critical of the airplane as a mobility option due to environmental concerns.

Mr. Shaw, you want to offer students discounted flight tickets with your platform. Now that the coronavirus pandemic is over, what do you want to do differently?

We are massively expanding the range of airlines and also opening up long-haul flights. A lot has happened in the meantime. Almost every airline now offers student fares. We are also seeing a new generation of students who have really grown up completely digitally.

What distinguishes this generation from older students?

We have to captivate younger users more quickly, their attention span has become much shorter. People often talk about seven seconds. Of course, we have to take this into account in marketing. Another requirement also has to do with the issue of climate neutrality.

Some students take to the streets for the climate, others are on the hunt for flight bargains. How does that fit together?

We have a generation for whom flying is no longer cool. Only one in 20 students even knows that discounted fares are available. Nowadays, people tend to hide the fact that they fly a lot. At the same time, the data also tells a different story: the new generation of students is traveling more than ever before. Corona has accelerated this because many students have realized that they no longer necessarily have to be at university to study.

So the desire to travel is greater than the shame of flying for many students?

Climate awareness and flying are not necessarily contradictory. The basic idea behind Flyla is to increase the capacity utilization of aircraft. And this also reduces the average CO2 footprint per passenger. The planes would also take off without the students on board, but with wasted seats.

But if the load factor doesn't fall, no flight routes will be canceled.

Of course, sooner or later, if you get more and more students to fly, this can also increase the demand for flight routes and thus the supply. That's why we realized early on that we had to deal with the issue of climate friendliness. We do this in two ways: We plant one to three trees in reforestation projects for every flight booked. We also offset the CO2 emissions of every flight. To ensure that the compensation projects are also serious and sustainable, we work together with Squake. This is a platform that was founded by Lufthansa, is active in Germany and is certified by TÜV Nord.

Environmental organizations tend to be critical of CO2 offsetting. Wouldn't it make more sense to reduce emissions?

Of course, the aim of the aviation industry must be to fly CO2-neutral at some point by using modern fuels.

Why is it important for students to travel a lot?

The average happiness decreases when you buy an object, but increases when you collect experiences. We want to enable students to travel who would otherwise not be able to afford it.

Do you necessarily have to fly?

Of course, some routes can be done without an airplane. In the long term, we also want to cover a broader spectrum of the travel market: Trains, flights, hostels. There are many components to a trip that we still want to develop. For many destinations, however, you will not be able to avoid air travel in the long term.

Personal details: Ben Shaw studied business informatics in Scotland and worked at the major British bank Barclays before joining the start-up scene. He has now taken over the management of Flyla.