• morrowind@lemmy.ml
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    5 months ago

    Not on longer flights. It doesn’t benefit airlines much to make smaller tray tables

    • deranger@sh.itjust.works
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      5 months ago

      Save on weight means save on gas. Multiply that by thousands of flights and it adds up. United printed their in flight magazines on lighter paper and saved hundreds of thousands of dollars, just by using thinner paper.

      They only eliminated 5kg per 737, but that added up to $290k savings.

      If anything I think it’d be even more effective on longer flights as those jets spend more time in cruise vs short haul airliners.

      By using lighter paper to print their in-flight magazine, Hemisphere, United Airlines saves up to 170,000 gallons of fuel, which cuts about $290,000 in annual fuel costs.

      One magazine is now one 29 g lighter and weights 195 g which will make a usual 737 plane that carries 179 passengers 5 kg lighter on average.

      https://www.kiwi.com/stories/united-prints-lighter-magazine-saves-170000-gallons-fuel/

      • slaacaa@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Good example, aviation is probably the most penny-fucking business in the planet, it’s a life and death fight between the companies, trying to keep costs low.

      • morrowind@lemmy.ml
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        5 months ago

        United makes 50B in revenue a year. I’m guessing that stunt gave them more value in marketing than actual savings.

        • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          You clearly do not understand basic math nor how rampant greed in capitalism works. Sad.

          If it saves them money, they WILL do it. (or even appears to save money)

          Or do you think Scrooge types aren’t literally known for penny-pinching when they’re already rich and wouldn’t even notice the pennies going missing?

      • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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        5 months ago

        It’s a good pr thing, but they probably saved more money by using lower quality paper than the saved fuel.

    • Wogi@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I suppose I don’t take many long flights and I don’t recall how much space I had on the last long flight I had.

      Typically on my domestic flights I have a tray table that won’t fit my switch if I want to stand it up.