Greenwashing Behaviours of Selected Low-Cost Airlines Operating in the Czech Republic

Abstract

The air transport sector is very ambivalent. On the one hand, air transport enables people and cargo to be transported very quickly and safely around the world. On the other hand, the air transport sector has significant negative environmental impacts such as the production of greenhouse gas emissions, land use, noise, and vibration. Airlines, and especially low-cost airlines, fight for customers every day and must adapt their marketing communications accordingly. As environmental and sustainable themes have become popular among customers in recent years, low-cost airlines have been using them a lot in their marketing campaigns. In some cases, companies commit greenwashing when they communicate false, misleading, or otherwise deceptive claims. The manuscript focuses on the airline industry, respectively low-cost airlines, which are highly susceptible to using greenwashing practices to influence consumer perceptions. The aim of the article is to identify and analyse examples of greenwashing practices of selected low-cost airlines on the social network LinkedIn. Greenwashing practices were defined based on a literature review. The qualitative content analysis method was used to analyse the profiles of selected low-cost airlines on the social network LinkedIn. Subsequently, the method of qualitative comparative analysis was used to compare the greenwashing practices used by selected low-cost airlines. Based on the analysis, it can be concluded that the analysed companies use greenwashing, especially irrelevant claim, vagueness, and fibbing in their marketing communication. This may be problematic for the analysed companies in the future as it may negatively affect customer perceptions.