Ant and Dec called out by environmentalists over SNT finale

An environmental campaigner has slammed the finale of Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway.

The finale of the British variety show - presented by Ant and Dec - took place on Saturday (8 April).

Despite the popularity of the series and its presenters, some ITV viewers were less than pleased with the finale - which saw a British Airways' plane flown across the Atlantic twice without any passengers.

The finale saw several fans of the TV show alongside Ant and Dec, Stephen Mulhern and Nicole Scherzinger, flown from London Heathrow to the US, travelling to Universal Orlando Resort in Florida to watch the live recording of the show.

However, the plane which carried the group there later returned to the UK the next day - covering around 8,672 miles - without any passengers onboard, and is reported as being set to jet back to the US after the group finish their week away, unoccupied yet again - travelling around 9,000 miles with no passengers and burning around 264,000 litres of fuel across the four flights.

And it's fair to say, environmentalists haven't been left best pleased.

Pexels/ Jack Edwards

Green campaigner Angela Terry told the Sun: "In a climate crisis, it’s shocking the show can’t offer amazing experiences to prize winners that don’t involve two empty trans-Atlantic flights."

Another source said: "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.

"It's environmentally irresponsible."

Twitter/ @itvtakeaway

A spokesperson for British Airways told LADbible: "Our partnership with British Airways Holidays covers the outbound and inbound flight that seats all our 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."

A British Airways Holidays spokesperson also explained that the airline purchased the equivalent amount of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) to cover all four legs that the aircraft completed during these flights.

They 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."

Tyla has contacted ITV and British Airways for comment.