Eco-Nuts Blast American Airlines for Nearly Empty Flight

We know that the environmental nutcases don't care much for capitalism, and when one of those evil carbon-spewing airlines operates a long flight with a handful of passengers, they go absolutely nuts:

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.

It led to American Airlines being accused of reckless behaviour by green lobby groups.

The latest "eco- scandal" flight took place on February 9 after American was forced to cancel one of its four daily services from Chicago to London.

While it was able to find places for nearly all the passengers on the fully-booked flight, five still had to be accommodated. Those who did fly were upgraded to the business class cabin.

But while they enjoyed lavish hospitality, the airline was accused of an "obscene waste of fuel" by Friends of the Earth.

It is estimated that each passenger produced 43 tons of CO2 – consuming enough fuel to carry a Ford Mondeo around the world five times.

Operating the near empty flight is estimated as having cost American about £30,000. But a spokesman said it had no alternative.

"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."

All too often it seems that airlines are willing to inconvenience or even strand passengers on almost any pretext, so I congratulate American for making sure their passengers were able to make their trip. Sure, there was some self-interest on the part of the Airlines involved, but they still did the right thing by their passengers.

As far as fuel being "wasted", that's nonsense. The fuel propelled the airliner where it needed to be in order to accomodate a future flight. That's how it works in the real world - something the eco-nuts will never understand.

How come I never get one of these flights? My trips are always packed to the walls.