Millennials’ awareness and attitudes towards flying

Abstract

Sustainability has started to concern an increasing amount of customers. The critical way of thinking affects buying habits and reach all the way even to leisure travelling by air. As the personal carbon footprint has started to interest as well others than environmentally-conscious consumers, people are trying to find alternative ways to mitigate emissions or even compensate them. The thesis is commissioned by “The steps towards responsible tourism” -project that aims to develop an education program. The purpose of the thesis is to get more information about whether Millennials are aware of the current global environmental and climate issues caused by flying and whether they take any actions to reduce their own carbon footprint. In addition to those, the thesis aims to find out what constrains and motivates sustainable travelling actions. The thesis is conducted as a research-oriented type, utilizing a quantitative questionnaire to gather the information from the target group, the travelling Finnish Millennials. The quantitative questionnaire is attached as appendix 1. The theoretical framework consists of definitions of the terms, environmental issues in aviation and Millennials’ flying habits and their role as consumers. Also, the aspects of the responsible consumption and its barriers and motivations are briefly introduced. The findings of the thesis revealed how aware Millennials are about the climate impacts of aviation depending on their age and gender. Most of them neither had the knowledge about the globally caused emissions of flying nor knew how long the carbon dioxide emissions last in the atmosphere. Although, female Millennials aged between 22-27 years old were found to be the most aware and interested in working for more sustainable air travelling habits. The most indifferent were young men and 31-33 years old Millennials. Attitudes towards flying and key factors driving for the purchase of the flight tickets were found out. Typically, Millennials travel between zero to three times a year. In general, most of the Millennials are worried about aviation’s climate impacts. However, the attitude-behaviour gap here is significant as many do not think the impacts of their own flying habits. Most of the Millennials were ready to pay for flying tax although only a few had compensated their flights. Also, some barriers and motivators to choose a more sustainable travelling method were investigated. Sustainable travelling was not considered affordable but seen as equally appealing. Moreover, the term “sustainable travelling” seemed to be vague for many. Out-side forces do not have significant influence to choose more sustainable travelling. Only media was found to impact at some level. The outcome gives valuable insights into the current state of Millennials’ awareness and attitudes towards flying. This can be used by the commissioned project in the program contributing more responsibility in the travel and tourism business in Finland