Airlines lightening up to save on fuel

“Twelve pounds is significant when you run anywhere from six to 35 carts on an airplane,” Shamblin said. The lighter carts will save the airline $1.7 million a year in fuel costs, she said.

Management decided last month to continue to lighten its meal service by getting rid of glassware on domestic flights. Its east coast flights already had switched to plastic. But on western flights previously run by America West, first-class passengers were still handed beverages in glass flutes and tumblers, Shamblin said.

“We actually were going to put glassware back on the east in first class until fuel continued to keep rising,” she said.

US Airways officials wondered if replacing glass with plastic would bother passengers. But in customer surveys “glassware didn’t come up on the list” of what was important on their flight, Shamblin said.

Still, US Airways will keep glasses for its premium Envoy class service during trans Atlantic flights.

JetBlue’s aircraft are 1,079 pounds lighter after removing extra trash bins, flight kits, supplies and seats — “all the little things that, when combined, make a decent difference,” JetBlue spokesman Bryan Baldwin said.

The weight loss will save the carrier roughly $16,000 for a three-hour flight, he said.

A lot of airlines are also trying to fly differently to be more fuel efficient. They’re carrying less water and putting less gas in the tank if the plane doesn’t need it to make the trip. They also plug in planes to ground power as soon as the plane lands.

Southwest Airlines cut fuel costs simply by flying more direct routes. The Dallas-based carrier equipped planes with life vests during the past two years, allowing pilots to fly over bodies of water and shave miles off of their flights.

All of these changes have helped airlines boost their fuel efficiency, Heimlich said. But he’s not sure how much more fuel conservation airlines can do. As fuel prices continue to rise, he said, carriers are parking many of their planes and cramming customers into the remaining flights.

“The place to cut now is simply the quantity of service: The number of flights, the number of seats,” he said. “In other words, the only thing left to cut is the amount of supply itself.”

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