Quick summary
Lufthansa Group retired its Green Fares label on October 23, 2026, relaunching the product as Impact Fares across Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian Airlines and Brussels Airlines. The rename follows a March 21, 2025 ruling by the Regional Court of Cologne in case 84 O 29/24, which found specified Lufthansa advertising about compensating flight emissions misleading.
The court did not order the name change, and the judgment was reported as not yet legally final. What the surcharge funds is now disclosed as a fixed split — one that shifts sharply by route.
Lufthansa Group’s green fare is gone — in name, at least. On October 23, 2026, the German group replaced Green Fares with Impact Fares across its airlines, a change passengers meet at the fare-selection screen rather than in the cabin.
Renaming a fare does not rename the physics. Every litre of jet fuel burned on your booking still enters the atmosphere, and the surcharge attached to an Impact Fare buys two things: Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) added to the group’s operations, and contributions to climate-protection projects outside its value chain.
For travelers, the practical question is no longer whether the label sounds green. It is how the money splits — and that answer changes with the route. On European flights, 20% of the estimated flight-related CO2 sets the SAF volume, with the remaining 80% routed to external projects. On intercontinental services, including Lufthansa Group’s long-haul Asia-Pacific network, the ratio inverts to 10% SAF and 90% projects.
The change applies to bookings on Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian Airlines and Brussels Airlines. The legal pressure behind it is German and European, but the fares are sold worldwide.
What the Cologne ruling actually decided
The case began with advertising, not with the fare itself. Deutsche Umwelthilfe, the German NGO known in English as Environmental Action Germany, sued over Lufthansa claims that passengers could compensate for flight emissions and reduce them through SAF. The Regional Court of Cologne ruled in the NGO’s favour on March 21, 2025, case 84 O 29/24, finding the specified claims misleading — a decision recorded in the plaintiff’s case documentation.
Two findings sit at the centre of it. Passengers who bought Green Fares were left without a clear figure for how much climate compensation attached to their own booking. And the impression that a passenger was offsetting their own flight directly, the court held, came from the SAF component.
The judgment was reported as not yet legally final.
Lufthansa Group’s own account of the relaunch is narrower than the headlines suggest. The group describes Impact Fares as a continuation of the same product under a new name, framed as a response to stricter rules on environmental marketing. Nothing in the court-related material establishes that the judgment ordered the fare renamed, and Lufthansa Group’s announcement presents the change as a rebrand rather than a redesign.
What did change is the disclosure. Under the framework Lufthansa published for the product, the surcharge splits by route type — and the split is nowhere near uniform.
| Date | Event | Impact |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | UK advertising regulators act against a Lufthansa Group environmental advertisement | First regulatory hit over sustainability messaging |
| March 21, 2025 | Regional Court of Cologne rules in case 84 O 29/24 | Specified emissions-compensation claims found misleading |
| October 23, 2026 | Green Fares renamed Impact Fares | New label, same product, route-based disclosure |
Timing is the detail worth pausing on. Lufthansa Group says an additional quantity of SAF is deployed in its operations within six months of each Impact Fare booking. That is a fleet-level purchase made after the fact, not fuel loaded onto the aircraft you board.
Scale matters too. Lufthansa Group’s own announcement states that more than five million passengers had booked Green Fares before the rename — a self-reported figure that has not been independently verified. For travelers weighing the add-on on flights from Europe to Asia-Pacific, the intercontinental ratio applies: 10% SAF, 90% projects.
Two regulators, two countries, one problem
This is not Lufthansa’s first run-in over environmental marketing. UK advertising regulators acted against a Lufthansa Group advertisement in 2022 that paired a sustainability tagline with an aircraft image. The Cologne case, three years later, attacked specific claims about emissions compensation.
Different channels, same pressure. Advertising review moves quickly and narrowly; consumer-protection litigation moves slowly and broadly. Lufthansa has now been touched by both, which is why the response is a label change rather than a product change.
That is a disclosure fix, not a product fix.
It would be a mistake to read the ruling as proof that the climate projects Lufthansa funds are worthless, or that every sustainability fare the group sells is unlawful. The judgment addressed specific advertising claims. What it does establish is that a fare name cannot carry the weight of a compensation promise — and that any carrier selling a similar product into the German market faces the same test.
Superdeals cover departures from North America, Europe and Australia.
Flight deals most people never see
Air Traveler Club monitors thousands of routes for pricing anomalies that traditional search engines miss. With ATC Superdeals members save up to 80% on each flight vs. regular fares.
Too good to be true? Check it out yourself. It's free.
Delivered weekly. Unsubscribe anytime.
How to read an Impact Fare before you pay
The surcharge is real money, and the label no longer tells you what it buys — the route does.
Open the fare conditions and compare what you actually receive — added rebooking flexibility and bonus miles — against the published SAF and project split for your route. On a European leg, four-fifths of the surcharge leaves the aviation system entirely.
Save the fare-description screen at checkout and keep the confirmation.
It records the product wording and terms attached to your specific purchase, which matters if the name changes again. Base fares are a separate question: Air Traveler Club’s fare tracking on European long-haul routes flags temporary price drops that can outweigh the cost of the add-on itself.
Bottom line: the label changed; the arithmetic did not — check the split for your route before paying more.
Reporting by
Questions? Answers.
Did the Cologne court order Lufthansa to rename Green Fares?
No. The March 21, 2025 judgment in case 84 O 29/24 addressed specific advertising claims about emissions compensation and SAF-related reduction. The available court-related material does not establish that the fare name itself was ordered changed, and Lufthansa Group describes the October 2026 relaunch as a continuation under a new name.
How much of my Impact Fare actually goes to SAF?
It depends on the route. On European flights, 20% of the estimated flight-related CO2 sets the SAF volume and 80% goes to climate-protection projects. On intercontinental routes the split is 10% SAF and 90% projects. The SAF is deployed within six months of booking, at group level rather than on your specific departure.
Does an Impact Fare make my flight carbon-neutral?
No. The surcharge funds a defined mix of SAF and external climate projects. It does not remove the emissions your flight produces, and the court found that the earlier SAF component created the impression of direct offsetting.
Will other airlines have to rename their green fares?
Not automatically. The Cologne ruling binds the parties in that case and was reported as not yet legally final. But it signals how German and EU consumer-protection rules treat claims that a fare compensates a specific flight — pressure that applies to any carrier selling a comparable product in the same market.
