Thursday, March 13, 2008

Trans-Atlantic flight had five passengers

An airline is under fire for flying an aircraft across the Atlantic with only five passengers.
The Boeing 777 used 22,000 gallons of fuel to take the five from Chicago to London.
It led to American Airlines being accused of reckless behavior by green lobby groups, reports the Daily Telegraph.
Friends of the Earth said it was 'obscene' to waste so much fuel flying an almost empty plane
It's estimated each passenger was responsible for 43 tons of CO2 - enough to carry a Ford Mondeo around the world five times.
An American Airlines spokesman said: "With such a small passenger load we did consider whether we could cancel the flight and re-accommodate the five remaining passengers on other flights.
"However, this would have left a plane load of west-bound passengers stranded in London Heathrow who were due to fly back to the US on the same aircraft.
"We sought alternative flights for the west-bound passengers but heavy loads out of London that day meant that this was not possible."
Richard Dyer, Friends of the Earth's transport campaigner said: "Flying virtually empty planes is an obscene waste of fuel."
"Through no fault of their own, each passenger's carbon footprint for this flight is about 45 times what it would have been if the plane had been full."

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