Saturday Night Takeaway has been chastised for flying a ‘big’ empty jet across the Atlantic twice.
The latest season of the popular ITV series concluded yesterday night, Easter Saturday, with a slew of lucky prize winners flying off to Florida in the United States.
The fans, who included Ant, 46, and Dec, 47, as well as Stephen Mulhern, 46, and Nicole Scherzinger, 44, taped the family entertainment show from Universal Orlando Resort.
However, it has been alleged that the aircraft, supplied by the show’s partner British Airways (BA), returned empty to the UK and will fly out again empty to collect the winners at the conclusion of the week’s journey.
The round-trip distance between London Heathrow Airport and Orlando is around 8,672 miles, which, according to the online carbon footprint calculator Carbon Footprint, equals to 2.10 tonnes of CO2 emissions per passenger.
A source told The Sun: ‘This is a PR disaster. While the planet is heating up, it’s incredible anyone would allow a huge plane to be flown empty across the Atlantic.
‘It’s environmentally irresponsible.’
In a statement a BA Holidays spokesperson said: ‘We’re pleased to have partnered with ITV and we purchased sustainable aviation fuel to mitigate the emissions associated with the charter flights operated as part of this trip
‘We returned the aircraft to London and subsequently back to Orlando to continue flights for our customers over the busy Easter period and in addition, we offered cargo space on these flights.’
Meanwhile, an ITV spokesperson explained: ‘Our partnership with British Airways Holidays covers the outbound and inbound flight that seats all our place on the plane winners and crew.
‘ITV shows aims to achieve the highest standards of sustainability both on and off screen and our efforts have been recognised by achieving BAFTA’s albert Certification standard which is the TV industry standard kitemark for sustainability in the UK and is a requirement for all ITV shows.’
The Trigger Point broadcaster has made various environmental commitments, including reaching net zero carbon emissions and zero waste by 2020 and 2030, respectively.
To encourage sustainable buying, it just announced eBay as Love Island‘s first pre-loved fashion sponsor.
Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway is available to stream on ITVX.
Source My Celebrity Life.
