American Airlines managed to rebook all but five passengers after canceling one of its four daily flights from Chicago to London. The five still needed to get to London, so American rustled up an empty plane and invited everyone up to business class. Seems nice, but Friends of the Earth is outraged that American burned 22,000 gallons of fuel for five passengers. Great customer service or eco-scandal? Vote in our poll, after the jump.
American claims they 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.”
Plane flies five passengers from US to London [Telegrah]
(Photo: Cubbie_n_Vegas)
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Five passengers, three pilots and probably 8 or 9 flight attendants… Should make for excellent service.
You referred to it as “fleet management”. I believe the transportation industry calls it “repositioning”.
Airlines do it all the time. Weather cancellations cause planes to be repositioned all the time.
@DeltaPurser:
I agree.
Sexists remark but I gott say it. I wonder if the any of the flight attendants looked any good?
planes fly empty all over the world all the time. It’s not a huge deal. This flight just happened to end up in the news.
@iMike: it would seem not.
aa was smart
you haters suck
wouldn’t they of done it even if there wasn’t five passengers? we would of never heard about it otherwise.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the plane carried a bunch of cargo to London. It may not have been as empty as it appeared.
I should be so lucky as to end up on flights like that! The last time I really enjoyed a flight were those just after 9/11. Delightful!
Planes have to fly empty (a.k.a “ferried”) all the time whether it be from a maintenance facility or simply because of a logistical issue. Jets are fuel guzzling hogs no matter who is on board. I declare this one a non-issue. Next.
I ended up on a nearly empty AA flight from LHR to ORD. The flight got delayed eight hours and while everyone else was scrambling to re-book, we took in some sightseeing and waited it out. They didn’t let us take over Business class but they did tell us to select a row (from one side of the aircraft to the other) and claim it as ours. We knew something was up when we approached the gate with our stroller to gate-check and they said “No need, just push it on in”. Since it was our first oversees trip with our son (who was then about two) it was perfect.
This is good publicity geared to the majority of flying population. Who cares about treehuggers. (jk)
Dammed if you do, dammed if you don’t.
Ha Ha!!!
I’m going to open a travel website for those who want to ride on these “repositioned” planes. As long as you can travel at 4am, don’t mind riding in planes fresh out of maintenance, and aren’t really that worried about getting home, the fares will be cheep!
If only I could find a spokesperson as compelling as the Shat.
I don’t get it — if they needed the plane in London, why did they cancel the flight and rebook all but 5 passengers in the first place?
There are thousands of stories of corporate irresponsibility having to do with resource use. Why do you pick this weak-ass one?
It’s not a story. Yeah, this kind of thing should never happen in 2008 with what we know about global warming. But c’mon, it’s not the best example out there. It’s the system that allows empty planes to fly, not American Airlines in this particular case.
The ugly thing here are the oblivious comments from selfish “Ugly American” consumers who don’t give a damn about greenhouse gasses–only their own comfort. Clueless.
It does happen all the time that airlines fly empty or near-empty planes. It’s understandable under the current way business is done. But it is wrong and has to change.
I saw this article some days ago on Digg. People are just getting their panties in a twist over nothing. Airlines do this all of the time. Weather or mechanical break down cause a shortage of planes somewhere and a plane has to be flown in so that they don’t lose more money on the passengers that would be stranded otherwise. And these decisions are made on an hour by hour basis as to where the plane needs to come from. When the first plane was canceled they may not have known one would be needed from there for London. They could have been looking at bringing in a closer plane but that plan fell through.
@ChuckECheese: Unnecessary s in internet. Bring a dictionary.
American should have just called up Al Gore… He’s always taking that big private jet back and forth across the pond. But, he’s special, after all. Not like “real people” who need to do as he says, not as he does. I’m sure he would have had lots of extra room.
But then, American had to deadhead the plane over anyway so as usual, FOE, shut up and go suck on some carbon credits.
the bigger environmental travesty is the hundreds of millions of single occupant vehicles commuting to work and clogging our skies with carbon monoxide.
@Viajero: Clueless Americans, eh? You are clueless about the workings of airline capacity. Over the last five years it has not only been a matter of conservation but cost savings that airlines substantially increase their RPM (Revenue Passenger Mile) and overall fuselage load factors. In fact, those load factors have been going up every year. Five years ago load factors were in the 60% range, today they are in the mid 80′s. The knock-on effect of this overall huge savings in fuel and reduction of greenhouse gasses is that every once in a while, in order to prevent a domino effect that leaves hundreds of passengers stranded, the airlines must reposition aircraft in order to meet their obligations. In this case, instead of sending the aircraft needed to accommodate hundreds of passengers at LHR empty, they sent five lucky patrons over the pond on the plane.
Today the airline industry is far more efficient than it has ever been, as evidenced by the overcrowded planes and domino effects of one maintenance problem. Be happy that it’s more efficient now. We Americans are hardly more comfortable today on airlines than we were five years ago. Sheesh.
@KJones: The reason the plane flew with five passengers was because it was delayed, and everyone else on board did rebook on other flights. The reason it was not cancelled completely was because of the 250+ passengers who would be in London wanting to return.
@ironchef: Perhaps. Of course the fastest way to clean up pollution from cars is to remove any vehicle older than about 10 years from the road. As such I would like a 2008 Volvo V50 T5 AWD to replace my 1987 Volvo 740 GLE. Which passed smog at the level of an average 2002 vehicle.
IF you bitch about htis I am sorry you will never be happy with any customer service you recieve…
Not only did they need the plane for the return trip or for the next leg of its journey, but if they didn’t send it on, then American would have had to rebooked those passengers onto other airlines & that might not have been possible. There may not have been seats for them.
Cruise ships are also repositioned, but since that is scheduled in advance, they’re able to book passengers for those sailings.
But American should state as to whether there was cargo on board.
That would take some heat off of them.
@badgeman46: Agreed. Maybe they’d have been happier of they AA gate agents had run through the airport yelling “Who wants to go to London for FREE” and filled the plane with random people? (And used a full load of fuel, as you pointed out.)
Damned if you do,
Damned if you don’t.
Consumerist! This story sucks and is obvious that AA did something that makes perfect sense, if there is nothing worthy of bringing then wouldn’t it just be better to not post anything?
Worthless stories garbage stories is why I stopped watching TV years ago.
Well, American had a few options here, as far as I see. Theres some more I’m overlooking, don’t reply to me saying “You forgot sending them on a rocket to mars”.
A: Have the passengers wait a long, long time.
B: At no extra charge, have an empty plane brought up to make a special trip for them
C: Do nothing.
Which is the right awnser? Find out next time on… “COMMMMON SENSE!”
@mantari: Well, the space shuttle uses liquid hydrogen as its fuel, so it’s only creating water when it gets burned. Zero environmental effect, unless you count the cost of creating the liquid hydrogen, which has to come from somewhere…
I guess the wait for the beverage cart wasn’t a big issue for them.
And they couldn’t have put them on another carrier’s flight because…?
@LiC:
“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.”
unless AA planned on putting everyone single person on the return flight on another carrier’s flight, this would make TOTAL sense.
I am appalled, but not just because of the environmental waste.
The REAL PROBLEM with many or msot airlines is their overbooking policies, and problematic means of getting people from here to there. There is a huge record fo overbooking, of fitting too much weight for the safety guidelines on one hand, ro of too few persons on the other hand.
Unfortunately, the poll was limited to the choices above and was not well rounded enough for a more openended issue. Thank God for comments boxes.
Agreeing with LiC, why not co-ordinate to let the other 5 on another com[any’s flight?
@SaveMeJeebus: eeexactly.
“Friends of the Earth” can suck my white ass ball.
Just sounds like they were making the best of what would have otherwise have been a non-revenue flight.
Logically if one flight to LHR was canceled, that would mean that the aircraft that would have flown the return flight would not be there. So it winds up being a win-win for the effected passengers and the airline.
Wow, I’m flying American.
And it’s cold here, we could use more flights, car driving, burning plastic, whatever.
Air Canada did this for us last year on a long international flight. There was a mess of cargo on another A330 and they were going to reposition it to a nearby airport anyways, so the repositioning flight took on enough crew to be legal with 9 passengers, they put us in Business and gave us Business meals and all, and the repositioning flight simply made a stop at our destination.
It was pretty classy.
So…. if they had taken half of the original flight and split it across two planes, would the eco-people have felt better?
@aikoto: You may be right. At the very least, the planeload of people crammed together like sardines on a trans-atlantic flight would probably preferred the airline split the passengers between the two planes. At least that way, everyone would have had extra elbow room, not just the lucky five sitting in Business Class.
I wonder if they still pulled the curtain between business class and first class?
That must have been a sweet ride. Lift the armrests and each of the five passengers could have had their own row of seats to lay down on for the long flight. They could have each had their own lavatory.
Eco-scandal my ass. What about driving up ticket prices for flying around empty planes? This is a superb customer service example, yes. Whoo American! But shouldn’t we rather be questioning how often these empty flights go around for whatever reason, even something as fundamental as shifting planes, when they could instead be lading passengers on at super discounts? Why jack up prices if they can afford to throw metal into the air willy-nilly like this?
Why do all the tree hugging whiners live in the hot climates. Move to the midwest and let me hear you bitch about global warming. OK scratch that, keep your sorry asses on the coasts, we don’t want you out here. Keep torching those Hummer dealerships and contributing to the eco damage. I am getting tired of the snow!!!!
It was actually more environmentally friendly because the plane burned less fuel than it would have if it were fully loaded.
This story was destined to be here. If they hadn’t we would have read about how AA bumped them and missed some meeting in London and are now suing American.
-clicks option 3-
Honestly, if the plane needed to go there anyway, they would have burned 22,000 pounds for NO passengers. Quit whining, honestly. Those people are lucky, and American is using this as a PR stunt, nothing more.
-also clicks option 3-
They’re contractually obligated to take the passengers where they want to go, I guess they could just null the contract and re-fund the money… but good on them for fulfilling their obligation.
Wait, I don’t get it. They canceled a flight, but they had a plane that needed to go their anyway? Why did they rebook everyone when they could have just put them all on this plane?