An airline wants its passengers not to pack any clothes and to ditch all their luggage ahead of flying.
Japan Airlines has launched a new scheme which lets customers book a set of clothes ahead of their flight, then receiving them at their hotel upon arrival. Once the holiday is done and the garments are no longer needed, the passenger returns the stitches, to be washed and sent on to another person.
The scheme, which runs until August 2024, is called Any Wear, Anywhere and is designed to cut carbon emissions by reducing the weight of planes, which in turn means that less fuel is required for a flight.
The airline estimates that 10kgs of luggage saves 7.5kg of emissions, on a flight from Tokyo to New York. The same flight produces two tonnes of emissions per passenger, so reducing that amount by 7.5kg is not an enormous amount, but is not nothing.
Two weeks ahead of a trip passengers have to sign up for the scheme and choose items from a number of different options. They can pick what gender clothes, what season they're for, whether they want smart or casual, and how many tops and bottoms.
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Japan Airlines will run the scheme until August 2024 (Taidgh Barron/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock)Their selections will be waiting for them at the hotel, for prices that range between £28 and £38 for the whole period.
Miho Moriya, who came up with the idea, told CNN: "I love traveling and I’ve been to many foreign countries, but I’ve always dreaded dragging around luggage or doing laundry abroad. When traveling, the three most important things for me are accommodation, food and clothing."
She added: "When we travel abroad, there are hotels and restaurants that provide lodging and food on site, but not clothing. Why do we have to bring our clothes from home?”
The clothes are either pre-owned or sourced from company overstock. Since the scheme started in July, the response has been overwhelmingly positive, Miho said.
"We have requests from all over the world and over 115 countries in total, even though we’re not doing any kind of promotion," she said, noting how Australia and US had the most users so far. Once the project comes to an end in a year's time, Japan Airlines will announce how much emissions were prevented.
Cutting emissions from travel will be an integral part of reaching net zero by 2050, if the UK is to succeed in doing so. One recent study suggests this will be particularly difficult to do partly because of the allure and glamour of jetting off to remote locations.
In the pursuit of social media clout, a third of Brits are following in the footsteps of their social media icons and heading for destinations they were directly inspired to visit by luxurious posts, new polling from sustainability non-profit foundation myclimate has revealed.
More than a third (36%) of Brits also admit they would travel to further destinations if their favourite influencers were promoting it. In the first six months of 2023 alone, gas-guzzling influencers burned through a shocking 717 tonnes of carbon emissions, which would worryingly take 57,000 trees over a year to capture.
The most popular destination was Dubai, with as many as one in five people (22%) saying that they had booked a trip to the city after seeing an influencer travel there. According to myclimate’s carbon calculator, this amounts to a 1.8 tonnes of CO2 emissions per person for each round-trip in economy seats from London Heathrow.
According to some estimates, the average Brit produces eight tonnes of CO2 a year - an amount that is far higher than most of the world's population, and one which needs to fall if Net Zero targets are to be met.
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More than a third of people (36%) say that they would travel further to stay at a resort recommended by an influencer they like, and the same proportion of people are also willing to pay more money to stay at a resort if an influencer they like had recommended it.
The study was released at the end of a summer in which record temperatures and wildfires scorched much of Europe, with British holidaymakers left stranded as high-profile airlines TUI and Jet2 grounded flights.
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