Thomson Airways demonstrates commitment to sustainable causes

Thomson Airways has raised over £100,000 for the charity Pump Aid through the sale of Thirsty Planet water onboard its flights. Since launching Thirsty Planet in November 2007, Thomson Airways has sold in excess of 83,000 cases of this bottled water.

For every bottle of Thirsty Planet sold onboard, five pence is donated directly to Pump Aid. This money is used to help people living in some of the poorest communities in Africa to gain access to clean water. In particular, the £100,000 raised has been used to construct 400 water pumps, giving 200,000 people access to clean water. These pumps will provided over 73 billion litres of clean water for people in Malawi and Zimbabwe.

Separately, this week sees the launch of a new in-flight film onboard Thomson Airways which focuses on the important work which is made possible via the Thomson and First Choice customer donation scheme; the World Care Fund. The Fund gives customers the opportunity to donate £1 per adult and 50p per child – a donation that is then matched by Thomson and First Choice.

The World Care Fund has raised over £4.5 million so far for our project partners; The Travel Foundation, which organises projects benefiting local environments and communities overseas, and ClimateCare, a leading international carbon offset provider.

The film focuses on projects that have been made possible by donations from the World Care Fund. It includes footage from the ‘jungle jam’ project, run by the Travel Foundation, which has been helping Mayan women develop jam from forest fruits in Mexico and the Earth Stoves project, run by ClimateCare, which helps food stall owners switch from more polluting stoves to those using biomass briquettes, reducing carbon dioxide emissions in India. 

As well as bringing projects to life for customers, the film aims to raise awareness of the importance of the fund and encourages customers to make or continuing making donations. At present, nearly a third of customers donate to the World Care Fund online and through Thomson and First Choice shops.

The film is available to view on both the Thomson and First Choice websites at:

Thomson.co.uk/worldcarefund

Firstchoice.co.uk/worldcarefund

Carl Gissing, Customer Service Director for Thomson Airways, said: “We are delighted to have been able to help some of the poorest communities in Africa to receive essential water supplies and would like to thank our customers for purchasing Thirsty Planet onboard our flights.”

“Our new World Care Fund film demonstrates Thomson and First Choice’s continued commitment to sustainable tourism and aims to encourage more customers to make a small contribution to such important causes.”