Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway has come under fire for flying a ‘huge’ empty plane across the Atlantic twice.
The latest season of the juggernaut ITV series drew to a close last night on Easter Saturday and saw a load of lucky prize winners flown out to Florida in the States.
The fans, along with Ant, 46, and Dec, 47, and the likes of Stephen Mulhern, 46, and Nicole Scherzinger, 44, filmed the family entertainment programme from theme park Universal Orlando Resort.
But it has been claimed that the aircraft, supplied by the show’s partner British Airways (BA), came back empty to the UK and will fly out again unoccupied to collect the winners at the end of the week’s trip.
The distance between London Heathrow Airport and Orlando is around 8,672 miles for a roundtrip, which, according to online calculator Carbon Footprint, equates to 2.10 tonnes of CO2 emission 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.
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‘It’s environmentally irresponsible.’
In a statement to Metro.co.uk 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 to Metro.co.uk: ‘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 several environmental pledges, including achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2020 and zero waste by 2030.
Its recent green initiatives include announcing eBay as Love Island’s first pre-loved fashion sponsor to encourage sustainable shopping.
Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway is available to stream on ITVX.
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