Sometimes environmentalists (and yes I am grossly stereotyping) strike me as misguided. For example*:
A major airline is under fire from environmentalists for flying an aircraft across the Atlantic with only five passengers on board. The flight from Chicago to London meant that the plane, a Boeing 777, used 22,000 gallons of fuel. The flight from Chicago to London meant that the plane, a Boeing 777, used 22,000 gallons of fuel.
Math Quiz time...
Suppose an empty plane is sitting in Chicago and it will cost $60,000 to fly to the UK empty, and $60,000 to fly back. In the UK there are 300 passengers, each willing to pay $1,000 to fly on a scheduled flight to Chicago. Choose the best option:
- Abandon the flight from Chicago to UK, avoid paying $120,000, but give up $300,000 in revenue. Net gain (-$180,000)
- Fly the empty plane to the UK, incur $120,000 in costs, but gain $300,000 in revenue. Net gain (+$180,000)
Gee, for some reason, American Airlines chose option 2.
"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.
And I love this:
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."
The total emissions were the same whether the plane was empty or not. OK, maybe a planeful of fat Americans uses up a little extra fuel than an empty one, but you get the point.
*Hat tip to Partial Nobel Laureate Brent Sohngen for mentioning the story.
