Jet2.com CEO Steve Heapy Receives 2018 Gorilla Award for Environmental Commitment

28/10/2019 01:00

SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Spain, Oct. 28, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Chief Executive Officer of Jet2.com airline, Steve Heapy, was awarded the Gorilla Prize on Friday, October 18, by Loro Parque for his contribution to the tourism industry and his commitment to environmental sustainability in these "turbulent times."

The founder of Loro Parque, Wolfgang Kiessling, presided the award ceremony and was accompanied by the President of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, the Speaker of the Canary Islands Regional Parliament, Gustavo Matos, Puerto de la Cruz Mayor Marco González, journalist Leopoldo Fernández and more than 300 guests.

"Today we present the Gorilla Prize to a self-made man, a person known for his success in the world of tourism and who comes to our islands in these times in which we need him so much," Kiessling said.

The president of Loro Parque regretted that the world is suffering "turbulent times," as shown, in his opinion, in the bankruptcy of British tour operator Thomas Cook, Brexit, the war in Syria and trade tensions between the United States with the rest of the world.

In addition, he said that the "enormous growth" of humanity is causing irreversible damage to nature and the different habitats of animal species: "In Brazil the Amazon is burning, but in Africa there are more fires and Indonesia has already burned virtually all of its forests," he said.

Kiessling says that it is an obligation to keep nature "operating" and, in the same vein, argues that zoos already act as "animal embassies" where different endangered species are cared for.

"What is not known is not protected," Kiessling said, adding that the world's population of elephants declined from 600,000 to 350,000 in 18 years, and that only 25,000 lions roam free around the world.

For this, the president of the Canary Islands tourism group started the Loro Parque Foundation 25 years ago and has invested over 21 million of U.S. dollars in conservation projects worldwide and managed to save from extinction ten species of parrots, which were on a brink of extinction but whose populations, thanks to these efforts, are now thriving in the wild.

This year's Gorilla Prize was awarded to the CEO of Jet2.com because Loro Parque saw that he shared their commitment to maintaining biodiversity, the care of the environment and sustainable use of resources.

In fact, the Kiessling family company recognized the low-cost British airline as the first to reduce the use of plastic on board its airplanes.

Jet2.com has quadrupled its number of passengers and tripled its flights since Heapy joined the company in 2009, and has a fleet of 101 aircraft in nine British bases that carry 6.5 million tourists to 70 destinations in 21 countries, 15 of them in Spain and four in the Canary Islands.