Airlines shed weight to conserve fuel

The next time you board a plane you may find fewer pages in your in-flight magazine, and that your fork and your plate are lighter in weight. You can blame it all on soaring fuel costs.

Even your seat may be made of lighter-weight materials. There may be less water in the bathrooms for the faucets and toilets. The drinks trolley will probably weigh less as well.

These weight reductions are all part of airline efforts to conserve fuel, and are being implemented in conjunction with the more radical steps of cutting routes and capacity.

“Individually they may sound quite trivial but they all add up,” said the director-general of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines, Andrew Herdman.

“Obviously, the more expensive the fuel, the more the savings translate into. Given that oil prices are at a record high and have quadrupled over the past few years, there’s even more effort” to decrease overall weight, he commented to the AFP.

Singapore Airlines has already introduced lighter weight drinks trolleys and service ware on its new A380 super-jumbo and on the Boeing B777-300ER.

“These carts and service ware will be on all new aircraft which join the fleet in the future. As for magazines, based on crew feedback, titles not in demand were removed,” a spokesperson for the airline said.

All Nippon Airways has been in the process of reducing the weight of passenger seats, and the tableware and trolleys used by its cabin attendants.

“By introducing lighter porcelain for first and business classes, we have reduced the weight by an average 66 kilogrammes on one flight,” a spokesperson commented. “We’re always looking for items whose weight can be reduced.”

www.singaporeair.com