Delta Air Lines Even Owns An Oil Refinery And Claimed To Be Carbon Neutral — Now Passengers Can Try To Hold It Accountable

A federal judge ruled that a passenger pursuing a class action lawsuit against Delta Air Lines can keep pursuing damages after it purported to be “the world’s first carbon-neutral airline,” even though they’re a fossil-fuel burning carrier with an aging fleet, own an oil refinery (and interest in a private jet company), and the claims turn out not to be true. The court rejected Delta’s the latest effort to end the case over its bogus environmental claims. Companies were leaning into ESG in 2020. Greenwashing was de rigueur. But this lawsuit fascinates me because it raises the question of whether it was all just marketing puffery, or if there’s real liability for claims that don’t come true? And why is it that airlines get a legal get out of jail free card on this? U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong’s July 28, 2026 ruling lets the plaintiff try to prove that Delta violated California’s Consumers Legal Remedies Act. They didn’t get an injunction, though, because Delta stopped promoting they were carbon-neutral on March 31, 2022, and the lead plaintiff acknowledged understanding Delta’s current marketing goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. The original lawsuit was filed on May 30, 2023 and here’s the third amended complaint. Delta’s Carbon Neutrality Claims Were Based On Bogus Offsets Delta announced in February 2020 that it would spend $1 billion over ten years and become carbon neutral on March 1. The message was that Delta had “become the first carbon neutral airline on a global basis” and had been “carbon neutral since March 2020.” This was in press releases, social media, a podcast, Delta.com banners, a paid campaign, seatback screens and an in-flight napkin. As flights continued burning jet fuel, Delta treated emissions reductions purchased elsewhere as balancing that fuel burn, with the complaint describing plans to spend more than $30 million on credits for about 13 million metric tons of 2020 emissions and Delta saying it ultimately spent more than $280 million on credits from March 2020 through March 2022. Much of that money was apparently wasted. I was skeptical when Delta announced carbon neutrality in 2020 because carbon credits rely on assumptions about events that never occur (how much deforestation might happen without paying someone not to chop down trees). It turns out to be ripe for fraud and Delta’s credits in particular turned out to be highly problematic. Delta added canned wine, bamboo cutlery and recycled polyester bedding to its environmental story in a 2022 “eco-conscious” amenities announcement. Delta promoted canned wine beside plastic cups (!) in its 2022 “eco-conscious” amenities announcement. Credit: Delta A carbon credit project promises to preserve a forest. The credit has value if the trees faced a real threat, the payment caused the protection, and nobody else claims the same reduction. Each credit depends on a counterfactual claim about the world where that specific credit was never purchased. The lawsuit is over the credits in Delta’s portfolio including funky accounting, preservation projects that would have proceeded anyway, delayed reductions in emissions and double counting. The Sham Carbon Credits Became National News Delta used to brag about its involvement with the Kariba project in Zimbabwe. Bloomberg‘s Matt Levine calls the folks involved “ESG Consultant[s] But Evil.” As Levine explains, “(1) the money kind of disappeared and (2) a lot of the carbon credits turned out to be fake.” The New Yorker‘s Heidi Blake has the owner of the forest generating the credits on the record, “I don’t know what you’re going to report on this, and I hope to God it’s not all of it, because I probably will go to jail.” It turns out that they sort of made up numbers as a benchmark for how much deforestation would have happened without a forest’s preservation. There was a reference forest nearby and it basically showed not so much deforestation was happening without the preservations. So the credits weren’t really protecting forests. And they oversold the credits (effectively selling the same fake credits to multiple buyers). Matt Levine: The problem with this anti-deforestation project was that there was too little deforestation. That seems good? For the climate? But bad for the people hawking carbon credits. The idealistic Muench pointed out the problem, and the now-jaded Heuberger was like “meh still fine”: Is There A Strong Case For Damages? California law bars a business from misrepresenting the characteristics, benefits or quality of a service. A key question is whether anyone bought Delta tickets, or paid more to fly Delta, because they were deceived about Delta’s eco-consciousness. Delta argued that the Airline Deregulation Act preempts the case because state law can’t regulate airline rates and services. The judge rejected that argument because California left Delta free to choose its environmental program, and treated carbon offsets as investments separate from the flight itself. This is going to be an issue on appeal. In Zajac v. United Airlines another federal judge (in Maryland) held that the Airline Deregulation Act preempted a similar greenwashing claim tied to ticket prices. But the strongest argument Delta has may be that the lead plaintiff testified that carbon-neutral advertising played no role in the four ticket purchases used to support her claim. An ex-boyfriend, her parents and an employer paid for some of her travel, with schedule, convenience and SkyMiles also entering her choices. She later submitted a declaration and deposition corrections backing away from that. The proposed class includes California residents exposed to the campaign from September 1, 2021 through March 31, 2022 who bought Delta tickets beginning September 1, 2021. Delta says 1,452,601 people with at least one California address bought a ticket between March 1, 2020 and March 31, 2022. Delta will try to break up any class because what each customer saw depends on where they look (press releases and social posts, Delta.com rotating banners, while napkins or seatback screens reached passengers after they had bought a ticket). Meanwhile, they have survey data showing the carbon neutral claims barely resonated – that 0.1% of survey respondents and zero in California mentioned the environment or carbon neutrality when asked why they chose an airline. What a waste! And they’ll argue they acted in good faith buying the credits, that it’s not their fault they turned out to be a sham. Delta Probably Prevails Delta made an absolute claim about current carbon neutrality and relied on a voluntary market with real weaknesses to deliver on the claim. Indeed, they name even say that it’s “hard-to-abate” aviation emissions and that its existing fleet, current technology and available fuel cannot deliver its long-term emissions goals. But the plaintiff is going to have a hard time demonstrating reliance on the claims in buying tickets and paying a premium to do so. They’re going to have a hard time certifying the class. And Delta has strong Airline Deregulation Act preemption arguments for appeal. Topics on this page