• morrowind@lemmy.ml
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        4 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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          4 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/

          • morrowind@lemmy.ml
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            4 months ago

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

          • slaacaa@lemmy.world
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            4 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.

  • BigBenis@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Airliner ticket prices used to be regulated. So when all airlines had to charge the same price, they had to find other ways to be competitive in order to bring in customers. Deregulation in the 70s brought ticket costs down but that means ticket cost is now the primary point of competition between airlines and amenities now come at a steep premium.

    • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Yep, you can have it one way or the other…cheap flights or super luxury and only the rich can fly. Planes are not cheap to operate and fuel isn’t free.

  • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    Airlines were not more luxurious 50 years ago.

    You had more legroom and the TSA didn’t exist, but everything else was way worse.

  • Capt. Wolf@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    So I remember taking a flight 10 years ago and they gave us pretzel pieces from snyders. I thought, great, we don’t even get whole pretzels…

    Next flight, they give us generic “trail mix” in clear bags. The kind the old folks down the street would give out at Halloween because it was “healthy.” but that contained approximately 2 pretzels the size of quarters, 3 peanuts, 3 generic m&ms, and 2 raisins…

    It gave me the impression that airlines are like schools, where the flight staff are the ones bringing in the snacks because the airline is too cheap to supply them.