Airline ditches onboard mag to save fuel - and the planet

Has the cost of fuel signed the death warrant for the in-flight magazine - those strange magazines you can pick up free on a plane?  A number of airlines including Japan Airlines and North West Airlines have announced that they are shrinking their onboard mags, but Emirates have just announced they will be scrapping their inflight magazine on their Airbus 380s, along with other paper onboard, saving an estimated 2kg of weight per seat per trip - and with 500 seats thats quite a lot of weight saved. The airline quite readily admit that fuel prices are one reason for getting rid of the magazine but to be fair, they do seem to be thinking of the environment too and are replacing the content in the printed magazines with a new online video programme which flyers can access on their seat back TVs.

See Media Guardian  28 July 2008