Airline goes to an all time save-the-environment low

I wrote about British Airways’ new unjust excess baggage fees yesterday, but when it comes to underhanded money spinners Sterling Airlines really takes the biscuit.

The Danish airline introduced a new luggage allowance on 18 January, which saw the maximum allowed check-in luggage drop from 20kg to a mere 15kg.

At a rate of DKK 60 (GBP 5.4) per excess kilo, the reduced allowance will prove, no doubt, quite the profit booster for Sterling.

What tips it over the edge for me, and makes Sterling the front-runner in the race for the award for biggest save-the-environment scam 2007, is the airline’s excuse for reducing the allowance. The airline claims to be introducing the new allowance in order to reduce fuel consumption, which will reduce pollution.

Please! Nothing to do with the fact that the reduction sets you up to make tens of thousands of pounds on a daily basis, then?

Well, in that case Sterling, please show us the figures for how much fuel you are set to save per flight. Because surely, you’ll have done some calculations before you introduced such a measly allowance?

I’ve done a few rough calculations myself, and the fuel reduction to be had by this new luggage allowance is minimal!

If we look at Sterling Airlines’ fleet, the biggest plane they have, is a Boeing 737-800. Their Boeing 737-800 has a max. passenger capacity of 189 and a max. take-off weight of 79,000 kg, all according to Sterling’s website.

So with the new baggage allowance the plane will be 189×5 kilos lighter, which comes to a total of only 945kg. If the plane was to take off weighing its maximum take-off weight, this reduction would come to 1.2%. If the plane was to take off weighing only half its maximum take-off weight, the reduction would still only come to 2.4%. I am no fuel expert, but a quick search found this:

“A recent study proposes, that for modern medium- to largecapacity aircraft such as B747-400, B777-200, B757-200 and B737-700, the additional fuel burn at high load factors is rather small. For example, an increase in the passenger load factor from 70% to 100% is suggested to generally lead to an increase of less than 5% in the total fuel use on trips of average lengths for those aircraft” (source: Greenhouse gas emissions from international aviation and allocation options by the Danish Environmental Protection Agency).

So a 1-2% weight reduction really wouldn’t mean much in terms of fuel consumption, would it now? But let’s be fair to Sterling, where are your figures?

Of course it goes beyond any figures that Sterling might cook come up with. The aircraft is not likely to be lighter, because

a) Sterling is not stopping its passengers from bringing the extra 5kg. The airline is simply making its passengers pay for the “privilege”.

b) Any kilos saved by the new allowance will probably be used to increase the freight load of the aircraft.

So in order for their save-the-environment argument to hold water, they would have to enforce the maximum luggage allowance, not allow passengers to bring the extra kilos as long as they pay up.

Sterling is not worried about their passengers’ reaction to the new luggage allowance, though. The airline’s Commercial Vice President, Stefan Vilner, was quoted by local media to have said: “Because we know what drives people onto Sterling flights. Low prices and cheap tickets”, (source: dr.dk).

Well, that is the thing, these scraped-to-the-bone tickets are not cheap, when you add it all up. Let me illustrate just for you Stefan Vilner, because trust me your passengers are figuring it out for themselves, just how much of a profit booster your new luggage allowance is.

I’ve obtained a quote from Sterling’s website for two adults flying from Billund in Denmark to London in the UK. Their return ticket comes to a total of DKK 1,596. Now, if they were to bring the old allowance of 20kg each, they would under the new allowance each be paying for 5kg each way. In total that would come to 5×4x60 - 1,200 DKK. So their ticket has now gone up to DKK 2,796 - a 75% increase!

But you already knew that didn’t you, Stefan Vilner - Mr Commercial Vice President. “For the environment”, please, do you believe in pink elephants as well?

Technorati Tags: travel, save the environment scam, Sterling Airlines, luggage allowance, budget airlines

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