Airlines that hand out tablets to premium cabin customers save money compared to installing wired seat back screens. Airlines like American that don’t even do that save even more, not just on installation but also weight in the aircraft and therefore fuel. Giving pilots tablets instead of their carrying maps and charts supposedly saves major airlines over $1 million a year each in fuel.
Luke Jensen and Brian Yutko calculated that “if every passenger remembered to go to the bathroom before boarding, shedding an average of 0.2 liters of urine, the airline would save $2.66 in fuel” per flight. With about 40 million commercial flights a year that’s roughly a $100 million issue. The higher the price of oil, the bigger the savings.
American Airlines Boeing 787-9 Lavatory
Already incentives are aligned in many ways that save on fuel.
- Checked bag fees and indeed carry on bag fees encourage passengers to bring less to the airport. That saves fuel.
- The TSA’s War on Water discourages passengers from carrying on as much water (they have to replenish inside security, where it’s more expensive to buy bottled water and most people don’t bring refillable bottles).
- Airlines that charge for water on board means less total water onboard and consumed.
Of course charging to use the lavatory would encourage passengers to go before they go.
Stop loading individual water and pour from bottles or skip service on flights less than 2 hours.
By extension, how much more would be saved in transportation costs if people attended to business before leaving for the airport?
I’m convinced that many people enjoy going inside nasty aircraft lavatories, as well as spreading germs.
From the time boarding commences from the time passengers can get up to use the lav nearly 1.5 hours have been consumed. To expect people not to go on the plane is moronic.
They would save even more if airports didn’t serve beer and airlines didn’t do drink service for flights under 45 minutes long 🙂
Seriously, I enjoy stats like this but it’s kind of like how much gas we could save if states wouldn’t require front license plates on otherwise aerodynamic cars.
While I always encouraged my kids to go before boarding it seemed like a strange phenomenon that made them want to use the lavatory in flight more. Perhaps it’s the air pressure?
@George N Romey you’re missing the point. Whether you use the lav or not, you’re bringing that fluid on board with you. The suggestion here is that everybody relieve themselves before they get on the plane, resulting in less weight in the plane. Even if you subsequently use the lav, the fluid is still in the plane.
Maybe the airlines should offer subsidies for Ozempic as one of their frequent flyer perks.
Oh FFS. Shall we have people doing enemas and vacuum evacuations beforehand? Shut up.
How much will they save for #2 is the real question?
I use the bathroom about 1/2 before boarding. Airline lavs are usually disgusting unless it’s the first flight of the day for that tail number.
I wonder how much airlines save in fuel costs from passengers skipping the final leg of their flights due to hidden city ticketing (“skiplagging”).
Back when change was a thing, I always wondered why airlines didn’t lean hard into charitable campaigns, Ronald McDonald-house style. Every gate should have had a donation station; coulda saved a ton of fuel not flying with all that metal.
This is an interesting statistic but to the extent it impacts me, I really don’t care. Will airfares go down meaningfully enough because we all went to the restroom (both #1 and #2) before boarding? I doubt it. The airline saves about $2.66 per flight. On a flight with 150 passengers, that comes out to 1.8 cents per passenger. I normally use the restroom right before I board anyway in case of tarmac delays and it takes 1+ hours to actually take off. But I’m not doing it to help airlines save a whopping $2.66 per flight.
Or just fly naked
The only ones who benefit will be the airline corporations – not the pre-urinating passengers, and not the environment. Without lifting a finger themselves, all airlines will simply pocket the savings from our micturition discipline and run away with it. What should be done instead is to remove all co-branded credit card application packets from airplanes – that’ll save a few pounds
I would guess that most people do in fact go to the bathroom before boarding.
But they also drink and eat ahead of time causing them to need the toilets on airplanes.
This solution is not very realistic!
Wonder how long it’ll be before Ryanair incorporates this into their operations manual !
The longer comment I made disappeared upon posting so I’ll post in short sentences. I go to the lavatory before boarding starts.
On a six hour flight or less I get out from my window seat zero or one times.
On longer flights up to about 16 hours, I get out two times.
I sometimes use loperamide as a preventative.
You too will get old and need to pee more often. Agree with Total.
Maybe this article was written by AI as first draft. It reads as simplistic and silly- as if the author asked AI to come up with creative ways to save fuel costs and landed with nonsense. Urinating before boarding would save $2.66 per flight. Not even a gallon of gas. Not worth the effort and impossible to enforce, difficult to even to encourage. Charging checked bag fees, and heaven forbid carry on fees, as a means to save on fuel costs is also a spurious connection. You could just as easily set stricter weight limits and charge for overage to lower fuel costs. Luggage fees make airlines millions, maybe billions and they were instituted when fuel costs were unusually high but have never gone away- and likely never will. Lots of people bring drinks onto planes – charging for water is ridiculous. Flyers need fluid in order to be hydrated and comfortable on long flights. Finally, charging to use restrooms would create accidents and discomfort-again not worth the effort.
I had no idea that the airlines were spending that kinda money on lavs! Now I’ll get up a few extra times and flush it, just for spite!
Gary, one of my favorite all-time posts from you was on the technicals about lavs. It was an incredibly detailed and important thought-piece, for the ages!
How much would airlines save if all passengers were <25 BMI?
Seriously? Have you seen the lines at ladies’ rooms in most airports?? There have been times making a connection where I had to bail on waiting to pee because I’d miss my connection. And I don’t usually use the lav on flights less than 2 hours, but a 5 hour flight where I’m trying to also stay hydrated??? Puh-Leez
I can just imagine being intercepted by a gate attendant wielding a scale in one hand and a Square reader in the other… “please sir, pee into this cup or hand me your credit card!”
Re: skiplagging, weight savings are zero – the airline already sold that seat twice so someone else is in it. They are saving on the incentives needed to get a volunteer to skip the flight though.
A 60kg passenger flies for the same ticket price as 150kg passenger…. But we should all pee out 200gs before we board to save the environment and the airline costs?
Think how much they’d save if they made all of us vomit and give out laxatives at the ticket counter.
I don’t want to save the airlines another dimensions to put in shareholders pockets. My pee schedule is non negotiable! Ridiculous article. No one wants to pee in an airline bathroom if they don’t have too
Most airports like the new LaGuardia have beautiful brand new SPACIOUS stalls to do your business. A large percentage of passengers do not fit comfortably in airplane bathrooms
No coffee, beer or diet coke will be served!
The moment airlines start charging for lav use, will be the time they sign their own death warrant. Airlines are already doing a good job of that already. Tell people they have to pay up to piss or schitt, and that will be the nail in the coffin. And the asinine idea that people should go before the flight to save $2.66 for the airline who we already know won’t dare to pass the savings on to the customer anyways… yeah, get out of here south that noise.
Seriously, they forgot to tell you to poop before boarding that would save them more money..
I always go before boarding, but I almost always have to go again during the flight regardless of the length. Perhaps it is because I am a 45 year old woman who has given birth. My bladder isn’t what it once was.
Did you really say charging to use the restroom would eliminate the need for people to use it? I, and most people DO use the toilet before boarding. Sometimes nature calls an hour or two or more later.
Encourage overweight passengers to take a bus could provide even more savings! Or, at a minimum, request passengers to walk 2 miles the day before flying.
I’ve wondered if it’s possible to link all duty free shops, that connect directly airport to airport, forward liquor orders to the arriving airport and deliver the purchase at the other end. Most liquor in duty free are global brands and found everywhere. How much weight would that save?!
Just require everyone to have a Foley catheter in place before they’re allowed to get on the aircraft.
Just landed 1 minute sooner. Problem solved.
I feel bowel movements on the flight should be politely restrained especially if you haven’t left the tarmac. You know you are getting on a flight, go even if you don’t have to. Use your gut muscles and cramp it into an evacuating position, get some tea or coffee, work it out.
First of all most people do go to the bathoom before they board so your “savings” numbers are wrong. Secondly you expect everyone to urinate 8 ounces?! This has to be the most ridiculous “fact” I have ever read.
Are these the same idiots who based seats on Airbus on the 60’s model Twiggy?
Just as that is an unrealistic expectation, so is your bathroom issue.
There are a lot of reasons people have to use the restrooms on a plane: medications, running to catch the plane from a connecting flight, weakened muscles from medical procedures, pressure change as plane climbs to altitude, high salt intake, the list goes on and on.
I think you can figure out where this is going: those of us who have any of these issues don’t deserve to be charged for it!! I’d love to see you try to charge a handicapped person who needs to use the restroom to empty gheif bag. I am just positive they will love you cor that one.
The airlines soak us in exorbiant fees for bags. If they really want to save money, the employees should buy out the shareholders. No whining shareholders whose only investment is money. Instead, you would have shareholders who actually care about their career and the company supplying their jobs. Employees that care about the company the work for are better at helping that company succeed.