In line with the government’s policy to take a big step towards a plastic-free India, Air India, the national flag carrier, is set to cut down on its inflight plastic usage from October 2019. This move will be carried out in two phases — in the first phase, the ban will be across Air India Express and Alliance Air flights and in the second, it will be extended to all Air India flights.
As a part of this, the airline will mainly remove single-use plastics such as cutlery and pouches and will replace them with eco-friendly, steel and paper containers.
Products like plastic tumblers will be replaced by paper tumblers; for teacups, there will be paper cups. Food items like banana chips and sandwiches that are presently wrapped in plastic will be served in a butter paper pouch; cake slices will be replaced with muffins to reduce the plastic packaging. For special meals served onboard, the airline will use eco-friendly wood cutlery.
Earlier this year, airlines such as Air New Zealand, Vistara, Emirates, Etihad, Delta rolled out measures to curb single-use plastic waste on their flights by taking several similar initiatives. Not only airlines, but airports also are aggressively reducing the plastic-usage. In January, Business Traveller India reported about the Airport Authority of India (AAI) declaring ban of single-use plastics across 16 Indian airports.
