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.”

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Plane flies five passengers from US to London [Telegrah]
(Photo: Cubbie_n_Vegas)

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