American Airlines Flies International With Only Five Passengers | Only 5 People on Board Flight

Transatlantic AA Flight Carries Only Five People?

March 7, 2008 9:23 am Nadia Cars and Transport, Environment, In the News, Travel

Environmental Concerns: American Airlines Flies International – With Merely Five Passengers!

American Airlines Transatlantic Flight
A mere five people rode a transatlantic flight from Chicago to London on American Airlines, wasting 15,000 gallons of fuel. Environmental groups criticized the airline for so much unnecessary waste.

How the Fuel Was Wasted

A mechanical problem on February 8 forced a flight to leave Chicago 14 hours late. Five people were unable to re-book and ended up flying to London in style on business class with two crewmembers per passenger.

American Airlines defended itself by saying it chose to fly the plane because it was due at London’s Heathrow airport for another scheduled flight.

AA did consider canceling the flight first, according to the airline’s European spokesperson Anneliese Morris. She explained, “this would have left a plane-load of west-bound passengers stranded in London.” The plane was also carrying a full cargo load.

Massive Carbon Footprint Left by Nearly Passenger-less American Airlines Flight

“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,” said Richard Dyer, a rep for environmental lobbyists Friends of the Earth.

Each passenger left a carbon footprint approximately large enough to drive an average car 100,000 miles.

Friends of the Earth said international governments need to hold the aviation industry responsible for how much carbon dioxide they produce per year. The group also suggests a fuel tax on airline companies when they do not meet the standards.

On the other hand, airlines are a business, and the cargo the plane was carrying may have been time-sensitive, according to Keiran Daly, an editor for Flight International magazine. “It’s just not practical for an airline to tell its customers that it won’t fly until it has a full passenger load,” she said.

Either way, a Boeing 777’s worth of gas was burned into the atmosphere as a result.

Click here to read the full story: Airline defends 5-passenger flight

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