Green Tech Girl

There’s a lot of bad news coming out of the airline industry lately. Companies going bankrupt, mergers on the way, and airlines unable to keep up with basic safety inspections. Rising fuel prices are jacking up the costs for both the airlines and consumers. As I blogged here not too long ago, small regional airlines are going the way of the do-do. I wonder if we’ll even have airplanes in the future, unless someone can come up with a cheap alternative fuel that can carry a large jet through the sky. (I suppose we could go back to dirigibles.)

With fuel prices so high, we can’t even get a full snack box anymore:

Your ginger-ale doesn’t come in a glass anymore on most US Airways flights. On Delta you’ll find yourself in a thinner, lighter seat. If you fly JetBlue cross-country, you’ll get a dainty bag of 100-calorie crisps in place of the original snack box of cookies, crackers and spreadable cheese.

With jet fuel prices so high, airlines have no choice but to scour their planes for ways to lighten the load. There’s no room for even the smallest bits of dead weight, from redundant wing lights to extra wires in the walls. Manufacturers also are using lighter materials in plane construction.

And meanwhile, we have an obesity problem in America…