Wizz Air's "one of the greenest choices" ad was banned for greenwashing.

In June 2024 Wizz Air ran a paid Google ad that told UK consumers to "Fly Wizz Air – one of the greenest choices in air travel." The UK's Advertising Standards Authority spotted the ad through its Active Ad Monitoring system and challenged whether the claim was misleading. On 27 November 2024 the ASA upheld the complaint and banned the ad.

Wizz Air had data to back the claim. It operated the youngest fleet in Europe, with an average age of 4.3 years, and said it had the lowest carbon emissions per passenger at 52g CO2 per revenue passenger kilometre, independently verified. But none of that basis appeared in the ad. The ASA ruled that consumers would understand the line to mean Wizz Air's environmental impact was among the lowest of all airlines flying to and from the UK, and because the ad did not make clear the basis of the comparison or provide verifying information, it was misleading.

The decision error was marketing a comparative environmental claim as if it were a brand promise rather than a measurable fact. Wizz Air had invested in fleet efficiency and sustainable aviation fuel, but the ad presented the outcome as a simple superlative without showing the working. In a sector under intense scrutiny for green claims, that omission turned a defensible position into a banned one.