Jaunted

Pee First, Fly Later

12/05/2006 at 9:20 AM
Tags: Airlines, China, Environment (all tags)

Only those sleeping under rocks don't know that fuel costs are a big issue for airlines these days. Slapping extra charges onto tickets is the most common way to deal with this problem, but China Southern Airlines has come up with something better.

We like to call it the "pee before you fly" campaign. Really. China Southern has started encouraging passengers to use the bathroom before boarding their flight. Some wizard there has calculated that one flush uses the energy equivalent of a car driving some six miles. More importantly, they see dollar signs in the form of how much money they can save from the skyrocketing energy costs.

A couple of other pearls of wisdom from their statistics bank: 60 tonnes of fuel per day are consumed when the aircraft carries sufficient pillows and blankets per passenger; a similar amount is wasted by loading each seat with three magazines. Why don't they just leave out the safety instruction card-- it's bound to be wasting a few tonnes of fuel, and nobody reads it anyway.

[Photo: florida straights]

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· Chinese Airline Urges Passengers to Hold On [The Australian]