Don’t get too comfy.
I would like to fly first class someday, because I’ve heard they serve you a crème brulee milkshake, give you a Swedish massage, and then cover your body in chocolate. But apparently such luxuries have a planetary price tag. Reports The Washington Post:
[F]irst-class air travel is … ruining the environment.
Or at least so says the World Bank in a new study estimating that the carbon footprint of a first-class airplane seat may be as much as nine times larger than an economy-class berth. A business-class ticket has three times the carbon footprint as economy. (The analysis is not adjusted, the report helpfully notes, to try to account for the varying weights of passengers).
In addition to the blow torches, masseuses, and gargantuan supply of chocolate sauce needed, flying first class is apparently pollute-y because first-class passengers, uh, have a lot of crap:
The seats are bigger, so there are fewer of them on the plane, and a plane with fewer passengers is using more fuel per person who is delivered to their destination … And first-class passengers take more luggage, adding more weight to the plane and consuming more fuel.
First class? More like worst class! ZING!
