American Airlines Criticized For Flying Only 5 Passengers Transatlantic

[Parche]

By Jenna Hodson

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Five people got the lavish ride of a lifetime as the only passengers on a transatlantic flight, causing environmental groups to criticize the major carrier for leaving a wasteful carbon footprint.


American Airlines has faced criticizm for a transatlantic flight carrying only five passengers.

Using about 68,000 liters (15,000 imperial gallons) -- or 13,000 liters per passenger -- of jet fuel for the nine-hour trip from Chicago to London, American Airlines is being accused of unnecessary waste.

Each passenger left a footprint of 35.77 tons of carbon dioxide, enough to drive an average car 160,000 kilometers (100,000 miles).

"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," Friends of the Earth's transport campaigner Richard Dyer said.

Because of a mechanical malfunction, AA flight 90 was 14 hours late leaving Chicago's O'Hare airport on February 8. Though most passengers made other arrangements to London, five lucky passengers unable to be rebooked made the 6,400 kilometer (4,000 mile) flight in business class, with two crew members per passenger.

American Airlines said it chose to continue with the flight because of the full load of passengers waiting at London's Heathrow airport to return to the United States.

"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," says American Airlines' European spokesperson Anneliese Morris.

"However, this would have left a plane load of west-bound passengers stranded in London Heathrow who were due to fly to the U.S. on the same aircraft."

Morris was quick to point out that despite the staggeringly low passenger count, the flight did carry a full cargo load.

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"We sought alternative flights for the west-bound passengers but heavy loads out of London meant that this was not possible. The only option was to operate the flight," Morris said.

"This put the aircraft in London Heathrow for the following day, enabling us to operate a full schedule and avoid further inconvenience to our passengers and cargo customers."

Environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth say that international governments should hold the aviation industry accountable for the amount of CO2 they produce each year, and point to instances like this to show that airlines should pay a fuel tax to rein them in.

"Governments must stop granting the aviation industry the unfair privileges that allow this to happen by taxing aviation fuel and including emissions from aviation in international agreements to tackle climate change," Dyer said.

But despite these accusations, Kieran Daly, air transport intelligence editor for Flight International magazine, said the amount passengers carried was irrelevant.

"Airlines are still a business. The cargo had to be flown and perhaps some of it was time-sensitive," Daly said.

"It's just not practical for an airline to tell its customers that it won't fly until it has a full passenger load. Customers won't be happy and the airline will quickly be out of business." E-mail to a friend

[grace0418]

1. I know it sounds selfish but it sounds awesome to get to fly like that.

Especially after waiting 14 hours.

[lost-in-nj]

2. I hear you....

it sounds like the way to travel...


they probably had to get the plane there anyway.....
so it's better to bring some people along.....
although if it went empty, no one would know....



lost

[KitchenWitch]

3. major legroom

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[Aristus]

11. My all-time favorite flight was from Dover, Delaware to London.

I was on terminal leave from the Army, so I was pretty happy already, and the plane had maybe 15 people on board, all told. I had a whole row to myself. I put up the arm rests, got a blanket and a couple of those tiny airline pillows, curled up and went to sleep. Eight hours later, I woke up in London. It was like something out of a dream. I was alone, footloose, and with a bank account bulging with money I'd saved my whole hitch in the Army. I was ready to blow it all on a jaunt to Europe, and I did. B-)

[harmonicon]

13. yep, I was on a flight like that once

from London to Detroit. There were more than 5 of us, the plane was at 1/10 capacity at best. Man, that was great.

And personally, I don't see what the big deal is. Most people fly for completely stupid reasons, and this just highlights how stupid flying is (oh, yeah, I'm taking a flight in two weeks, like I do every few weeks - and I will until it's as cheap and easy to take the train).

[KatyaR]

19. Me, too.

The day Ray-gun was shot, I was scheduled to be on a flight from NYC to OKC. When I got to the airport, most people had decided not to fly, but I had to get home. So I got to fly on a DC-10 halfway across the country with a total of 5 passengers. I think there were more flight attendants than passengers. It was awesome, even though it was pretty eery as well.

[madinmaryland]

4. And you can be sure there was a screaming child on that flight!

:rofl:

[trof]

5. Uh..guys? It's why they're called 'scheduled airlines'.

By law, airlines can't cancel a flight because they didn't sell enough seats. Or because few people show up for the flight.

And they had to get the aircraft to Heathrow for the passengers on the return flight.

Now you can just ferry an airplane to do this. Usually with just cockpit crew, but sometimes with cabin crew also.

Hell, at least they had 5 paying passengers to help with the gas.
;-)

[liberaltrucker]

7. Exactly

It's the totality of carbon emissions that have to be dealt with, not one isolated incident.

:hi:

[LeftyMom]

6. Knowing my luck, I'd still have wound up wedged in next to an obese person with bad gas.

In a seat that doesn't recline. And my specially-requested vegan meal is nowhere to be found. And that's after half the TSA felt me up, while the other half shopped their way through my luggage.

[Parche]

8. Felt Up By TSA

:woohoo: :woohoo: :hi:

[av8rdave]

10. That happened to me...twice!

[triguy46]

9. Only in my dreams, what a deal! That happened to me once...

except not transatlantic, but from Tampa to Sarasota about a 15 minute flight, but for 15 minutes I was in first class heaven.

[BreweryYardRat]

12. Puddlejumper flight?

Doesn't sound like it, but I have a hard time believing a major carrier would make a hop that short.

[BlueCollar]

15. that's in order to not get sued

by some whiney passenger?

Or maybe because your ticket is a contract?

[triguy46]

17. Nope, Delta. 1988. 727.

[DarkTirade]

14. Considering that they needed the plane to take passengers back from england

for the next flight, they would have had to fly it over anyway... might as well stick a few people on there.

[petronius]

16. I had a flight like that once - my flight was delayed an hour or two, and most people

got on other flights. I flew Seattle to LAX with about 15 people on board. The funny thing was that there was another flight - same route, same airline - that was scheduled to depart at the same time we were delayed to. That flight took off crammed to the rafters almost simultaneously with our empty flight.

The other cool thing was that our plane was fully catered with some really tasty breakfast sandwiches - I must have eaten half a dozen of them...

[mikeytherat]

18. I once flew from Narita (Tokyo) to Seattle on a 747 with 20 passengers.

Mid-1980s, United flight, just me and 20 young Marines with the plane to ourselves. We drank like fish and landed in Seattle, at 10:00 a.m., three or four sheets to the wind.

mikey_the_rat