A ‘Climate Change Crime,’ Or… ?

American Airlines is the subject of a modest row across the Atlantic, where environmentalists are furious that the company proceeded with a flight from Chicago to London with only five passengers.
The issue arose when AA’s Flight 90 was delayed more than 12 hours on Feb. 8 at O’Hare. Given the enormity of capacity to London these days, most passengers had made other arrangements by the time the 777 was ready to depart for Heathrow. By then, five people remained, and American needed the plane in England to collect passengers who planned to fly to the states.
“It is a climate change crime,” Norman Baker, a member of Parliament and a transport spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, was quoted as telling London’s Daily Mail in today’s editions. “It shows the ludicrous nature of the aviation industry. For an airline to think it sensible to fly aeroplanes which are virtually empty and where the crew outnumber the passengers is madness.”
According to the newspaper’s math, the average car would need to travel 123,000 miles to match the carbon footprint of the American flight to London.
American spokeswoman Anneliese Morris said the decision to fly the mostly-empty plane was made after the company carefully deliberated the repercussions to other passengers. “We had to consider the knock-on impact cancelling this flight would have had on our schedule out of London on a weekend when all of the flights were extremely busy,” she said.
This is, fortunately, a very rare occurrence in the airline world and one can see fine points raised by both sides. Those five people who had tickets to London are just as valid as any of American’s other passengers – and yes, each was reportedly upgraded to business class, if you were curious. (Wonder how luxurious that flight was? Consider: Given the average crew size on a 777, each of the five had an average of two flight attendants assigned to him/her.) And why would the airline cancel the flight and assume the cost and burden of rebooking all those now-irritated U.S.-bound passengers when that was avoidable?
And yet… the fuel burn for the flight was not insignificant. One thinks American could have made alternative arrangements for its London passengers to reach their destinations. Moreover, it is the winter lull season, when loads typically drop across the industry. So maybe the activists are onto something. Perhaps this case is just further evidence that the environmental impacts of our travel have not reached a critical mass for most of us. Does the issue of one’s “carbon footprint” play absolutely any role at airline operations centers? Should it? Do we want or need airlines considering this issue when it comes to making a call about which flights to scrub and which to push? I’d be fascinated to hear from anyone who works in operations on this.
So what do you think: Did American do the right thing?

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