American Airlines flies plane with 5 passengers from U.S. to London

[Regis Philbin]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/news/2008/03/05/nplane105.xml

Plane flies five passengers from US to London

By David Millward, Transport Editor

Last Updated: 1:55am GMT 06/03/2008

A major airline is under fire from environmentalists for flying an aircraft across the Atlantic with only five passengers on board.

The flight from Chicago to London meant that the plane, a Boeing 777, used 22,000 gallons of fuel.

Friends of the Earth said it was 'obscene' to waste so much fuel flying an almost empty plane

It led to American Airlines being accused of reckless behaviour by green lobby groups.

The latest "eco- scandal" flight took place on February 9 after American was forced to cancel one of its four daily services from Chicago to London.

While it was able to find places for nearly all the passengers on the fully-booked flight, five still had to be accommodated. Those who did fly were upgraded to the business class cabin.

But while they enjoyed lavish hospitality, the airline was accused of an "obscene waste of fuel" by Friends of the Earth.

[db44]

Now that is dumb. Shame on AA if they did do that.

[Richard Tafoya]

Wrong angle. This is just stupid business. There's no way the fares of five people paid the total direct and indirect costs of making the flight.

I already hate American Airlines because they have some stupid passenger policies, but if this sort of thing hurts their market valuation enough to be merger bait for a better airline to acquire them, then go for it.