Firefly Airlines doubles down on sustainability by recycling inflight beverage cartons

Firefly Airlines has partnered with Tetra Pak to recycle its inflight beverage cartons, in a bid to help preserve the environment while offering more usable projects to consumers without the need for extra resources.

CEO Philip See said that having started with just used beverage cartons, it will gradually begin transitioning to more sustainable initiatives in the near future. This is because the airline also needs to consider space and time pressures on cabin crew to collect materials separately. The recycled UBCs are collected and recycled into something new and useful such as recycled paper, cardboards, roofing tiles, furniture and many more.

Terrynz Tan, environment director, cluster South Asia, East Asia Oceania, Tetra Pak said it is the company's goal to introduce recycling to as many Malaysians as possible.

"It has been a great journey towards educating more people on the usefulness of beverage cartons even after it has served its purpose. We are honoured to partner with Firefly and look forward to benefitting more communities, increasing the recycling rate and introducing even more collection points as a result of this initiative," Tan said.

Earlier this month, the airline attempted to catch travellers' attention with its "Dump your ex" campaign targeted at new consumers. The campaign encourages travellers to “get into a long term relationship” with Firefly by moving away from other airlines and fly with it instead. Izra Izzuddin, Firefly’s marketing and communications vice president, told A+M previously that the in-house campaign will run online, on social media as well as other digital channels such as EDM.

According to her, Firefly has one or two “crazy campaigns” annually on top of its ongoing initiatives. This is because Izra believes that differentiation is key in any competitive business or industry and every brand needs to stand out by creating buzz and noise.