Willie Walsh was not the only one pre-occupied with environmental issues this week.
While the BA ceo was calling on the EC to makes its policy on emissions trading simple and practical, German travel managers, at their VDR spring conference in Frankfurt, were spending much time discussing various green issues.
Environmental concerns seem to be playing an increasing role among politicians and leaders of industry. One senior executive at a UK travel management company told BTE that green issues, along with the duty of care, were the two top concerns for many boardrooms.
Certainly they are far higher up the agenda than they were even a year ago and travel - or more specifically air travel - is particularly in focus.
People are concerned about greenhouse gas emissions, like carbon dioxide (CO2) and the likely global warming it brings in its wake and feel that aviation, like other industries, should play its part in reducing them as laid out by the Kyoto Protocol.
Mr Walsh believes that an EC emissions trading scheme (ETS) is vital to demonstrate aviation's acceptance of this.
The EC launched its ETS in 2005, but airlines were not included. The earliest any ETS is likely to include them is 2008 – just two years away.
The strength of the aviation's case is that, at the moment, it accounts for only a fraction, around 4%-5%, of global CO2 emissions. Mr Walsh puts the UK figure at "just over 5%" adding that "UK aviation's contribution to global emissions is around 0.1%."
The weakness of aviation's case is sheer growth of flying. The number of people flying is growing at a phenomenal rate. According to the Aviation Environment Federation (AEF), worldwide passenger traffic is rising by 5% a year and freight by 6%. At this rate, the world's civil aircraft fleet will double by 2020.
Currently there are around 16,000 commercial aircraft in the world which annually emit 600m tonnes of CO2 a year. If this doubles, the outcome is obvious: more flights, more emissions, more pollution/global warming.
Aircraft also emit another greenhouse gas, nitrogen oxide (NOx). If this doubles as well, air pollution in towns near airports is likely to break quality standards.
One UK estimate is that by 2030, aviation will be responsible for 25% of C02 emissions in Britain. Last June, a British institution, the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research produced a report that concluded that if aviation continues to grow at its present rate, its emissions would wipe out all savings made in other sectors, e.g. less use of cars.
If the EU and the UK were to remain within "safe limits", the report said aircraft emissions would take up the entire emissions budget for the first by 2040 and for the second by 2037.
It would mean, the report said, that schools, hospitals, houses, industry, let alone cars would not be able to release any greenhouse gases – an unsustainable prospect.
When the ETS including airlines does come into force, there are fears, voiced at the VDR meeting in Frankfurt, that there could be restrictions on travel with possible knock-on effects for ticket prices.
Such a scheme might also persuade airlines in Europe to address the increasingly obvious problem of over-capacity.
How the business travel industry deals with these concerns is still very unclear. The most accurate answer at the moment is that it just does not know.
Travel won't stop – business prospers on face to face meetings. It is likely that video-conferencing will, as so often predicted, increase and trains, as they get faster and more efficient, also seem set to take a higher profile.
But there is a real possibility that green issues will force a reduction in the amount of air travel. And this in turn leads on to another fear: that business travel could suffer disproportionately.
Politicians with an eye on the ballot box are not going to levy huge taxes or impose major restrictions on holiday flights. But they may not feel so retrained about business travellers.