Hi Fly operates no single-use plastics passenger flight

Friday, December 28, 2018

Portuguese charter carrier Hi Fly is operating a passenger flight which will have no single-use plastic items. The plastics-free Airbus A340 flight ferried passengers from Lisbon to the northeastern Brazil city of Natal on Tuesday.

The single-use plastic items that have been replaced are cups, spoons, salt and pepper shakers, sick bags, packaging for bedding, dishes, individual butter pots, soft drink bottles and toothbrushes. As an alternative, the airline is providing passengers with items such as bamboo cutlery, paper packaging and compostable containers.

Hi Fly will operate three more flights as part of a holiday-season trial which will cover about 700 passengers. The four test flights will prevent the use of approximately 770 pounds of plastics.

Hi Fly CEO Paulo Mirpuri wants their airlines to become the world’s first plastics-free airline by 2019. He adds that over 100,000 flights take off each day around the world and commercial aircraft carried nearly four billion passengers in 2017. This number will double within 20 years. Going plastic-free will have huge impact.

As per the Montreal-based airline industry group International Air Transport Association (IATA), the flyers produced 5.7 million tonnes of waste in 2017. It weighs as much as the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Alaska Airlines became the first US airline to ditch plastic straws in May. Delta and American Airlines have also removed plastic straws from its flight.

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