ANA To Offer Keg Beer After Asking Passengers To Empty Bladders

Back in October of 2009 All Nippon Airways (ANA) began an interesting initiative to reduce the airline’s carbon footprint by asking passengers to empty their bladders before flying. All Nippon Airways stated that asking passengers to empty their bladders would lead to lighter passengers and reduced lavatory waste, which would translate into a lighter aircraft and reduced fuel consumption. I wrote about this in detail here : Will Empty Bladders Reduce An Airline’s Carbon Footprint? ANA Says “Yes”

Last week in a bit of an ironic twist on asking passengers to empty their bladders, All Nippon Airways has announced they will launch a draft beer keg service on board domestic flights.  Each flight will be limited to only twenty available cups of draft beer, with the exception of Tokyo-Okinawa flights, operated by Boeing 744D & 773 aircraft, where 40 cups of draft beef will be available.

An issue ANA will face in serving draft beer from a keg in flight is air pressure. Kegs are pressurized on the ground, and that pressure changes as the aircraft is pressurized in flight. To counteract this, ANA is installing specialized kegs for the aircraft. I am curious if these kegs are CO2 pressurized with a traditional tap, or since the kegs are very low quantity and sure to sell out quickly they employ the hand-pumped “party pump” tap that requires the user to pump air into the keg.

Additionally … ANA claims it is the first airline to offer in-flight keg beer … Brazil’s Varig airlines previously served keg draft beer in their first class cabin on long haul flights.

A cup of beer from the in-flight keg will cost ¥1,000 (US$11.30) and leaves me with this question … does anyone else see the irony is asking passengers to empty their bladders before a flight … the offering in-flight keg beer service?

Happy Flying!