Each airline has its own approach to food and beverage service. The type of consumables varies, of course, based on the airline itself, what country you’re in, how long your flight is and what class you’re seated in.
Of course, airlines have made multiple changes to their food and beverage service over the years. These include what they offer. The quality of what they offer. Whether or not you have to pay for something better. Even stupid stuff like Delta’s awful napkins (which were eventually changed out for something better).
In these more recent years of environmentality, lots of travel and travel-related companies are looking at ways to be more sustainable.
- Some hotels are eliminating bottled water
- Airlines have figured out all sorts of ways to decrease fuel consumption
- In an effort to decrease emissions, France banned short-haul domestic flights in 2022
- Frontier Airlines claims that checked baggage fees were good for the environment
Some airlines have also changed the type of containers their foods come in, making them more recyclable. Let’s just say that for some of them, bring a Tide pen (oy, the mess!).
To that end, Delta has recently announced its plans to eliminate plastic cups on all its flights. Instead, regardless of what you’ll be drinking – coffee, soft drinks, or alcohol, it will be served in a paper cup.
The airline says it will save 7 million pounds of single-use plastic onboard with the new cups.
From Delta’s Chief Sustainability Officer Amelia DeLuca:
“As an airline, our main goal is to decarbonize our business – a lot of which will come from what we fly, how we fly, and the fuel we use. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t also focus on what we can do right now within our own operation to be more sustainable. These cups are a great example of how Delta is working to address our impact through what we can control today. They’re a highly visible and tangible example for our customers and our people of how Delta is taking our commitment to embed sustainability in everything we do seriously.”
Delta’s goal was to develop a cup that could keep hot drinks hot and cold drinks cold while also being able to withstand the dissolving properties of alcohol. The cups needed to be stackable within the galley carts flight attendants use and be easy to separate so flight attendants would be efficient during beverage service.
“One of the most important things about making long-term, sustainable changes is having the opportunity to test the new solutions and get real feedback from both our employees and our customers,” DeLuca added. “We constantly need to be testing, learning and iterating. That’s what innovating is all about, and innovation is core to Delta’s DNA.”
Delta is in the midst of its final testing of the new cups; they expect to be done with that by this coming spring. Following the trial they’ll go back to the plastic cups for a time, while the new paper cups are being mass produced. Once they are made, they’ll be introduced systemwide.
To be fair, Delta’s first and business class customers have been enjoying their beverages in real glasses (made of glass) all along and will undoubtedly continue to do so.
Feature image: Delta Air Lines
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8 comments
Worse thing ever! Drinking a jack and coke out of a paper cup, got to be kidding me!!!! Just awful…
So check the cradle to grave environment unfriendliness of paper. Single use for sure. And what industry leads the way in environmental unfriendlyness – yes, you got it . Check the water and air pollution statistics for paper. Clearly reusable glass would be FAR BETER environmently and don’t forget the disposable costs of single use paper. Another example of looks/sounds nice until you unravel to the details.
Not disagreeing with you. However glass cups require washing. They also pose a danger in the hands of someone who’s mentally unstable at 35,000 feet (although an unstable person in first/business class is OK?). I’m not saying I know what the right answer is; just that this is what Delta will soon be doing.
So, why not serve the beverages in the cans they come in (if applicable) instead of providing a cup…
Where does paper come from?
😉
Drinking anything out of a paper cup tastes awful…. wine being the worst to put into paper cup !!!
PS I guess we will start bringing our own glass or plastic cups!!
Plastic is killing the planet and the less everyone uses of it, the better. With few exceptions (generally medical) single-use plastics should be banned (and, no, plastic is never truly “recycled”). Paper, at least, can come from renewable sources and it ultimately is far more environmentally favorable than plastic (despite what big oil propaganda is trying to sell us — they love plastic because it’s made using fossil fuels). And don’t even begin to think about the chemicals in that plastic cup you’re using.