I have really abused The Buzz lately, without my last post being 5 months ago! There is no good reason for that, and I am going to try to post more frequently this fall, but I have said that before….

Sometimes it takes a ludicrous story that needs to be re-told in order to break me out of my blogging doldrums. Such a story came up last week, when it was reported that All Nippon Airlines of Japan has instituted a pilot project where they are asking their passengers to visit the bathroom before boarding.

You might think that this project is being implemented to reduce passenger disruptions and improve maneuverability for flight attendants. You thought wrong! All Nippon brass decided that a plane full of empty bladders (and colons too) would equate to a lighter payload which would require less fuel to fly. That’s right. The logic behind the empty bladder policy is to reduce the airline’s carbon footprint.

In theory this plan actually could have a positive impact on a flight’s carbon footprint, albeit a minimal one. One article calculated that if every passenger on a fully booked flight went to the bathroom before boarding it would equal the weight of three grown men (however that assumes that all bladders were full, which is not a realistic assumption).

Is this another case of ‘carbon footprint craziness’? It seems like a policy that encourages bathroom use is starting to cross the line into intrusion of personal space. It also is likely that the airline could easily have found another way to reduce the plane’s payload without facing the ridicule in the press or the backlash of irritated passengers. In the meantime, if you are flying All Nippon sometime soon, there should be fewer lineups for the bathroom.