How would you feel about drinking your inflight soft drinks \u2014 or cocktails \u2014 out of a paper cup?<\/p>\n
That’s what the future holds for Delta Air Lines<\/a> passengers.<\/p>\n This month, the Atlanta-based carrier announced it’s beginning final testing on a new paper cup that would replace all of the plastic cups currently used on board its planes.<\/p>\n Want more airline-specific news? Sign up for TPG’s free biweekly Aviation newsletter<\/a>.<\/b><\/p>\n These won’t be the same paper cups currently used for coffee and hot tea. Delta says it has spent years prototyping a new cup that’s capable of withstanding its entire lineup of inflight beverages<\/a> \u2014 hot, cold and alcoholic. Also, these new cups are designed to make it easy for flight attendants to stack and separate, to keep inflight service moving efficiently.<\/p>\n Daily Newsletter<\/p>\n Reward your inbox with the TPG Daily newsletter<\/p>\n Join over 700,000 readers for breaking news, in-depth guides and exclusive deals from TPG\u2019s experts<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Making changes like disposing of single-use plastics won’t come close to achieving that goal, though. By far, the largest part of that initiative, IATA says, involves switching to more planet-friendly jet fuel (known in the industry as “sustainable aviation fuel<\/a>).<\/p>\n However, SAF is currently used on just a tiny portion of commercial flights, and producing it is, today, far less cost-efficient compared with current, kerosene-based fuels \u2014 an uphill battle David Neeleman, Breeze CEO, bemoaned<\/a> as a “waste of money” during comments at an industry event this fall.<\/p>\n Aviation is believed to contribute to around 2% of global emissions.<\/p>\n Delta acknowledged these challenges in announcing its shift away from plastic cups.<\/p>\n “Our main goal is to decarbonize our business \u2014 a lot of which will come from what we fly, how we fly, and the fuel we use,” Amelia DeLuca, chief sustainability officer, said in a statement announcing the news.<\/p>\n “But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t also focus on what we can do right now with our own operation to be more sustainable,” DeLuca said.<\/p>\n To date, Delta has removed around 4.9 million pounds of single-use plastics from onboard its planes.<\/p>\n Its new cups are compostable and can be recycled.<\/p>\n When might you find yourself drinking wine out of a paper cup on a Delta flight?<\/p>\n Final testing on select flights will happen over the next few months and will wrap up by spring 2024, according to the airline.<\/p>\n At that point, the plastic cups will return \u2014 temporarily \u2014 while the replacement paper cups are produced and then rolled out across the airline’s network.<\/p>\n Related reading:<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How would you feel about drinking your inflight soft drinks \u2014 or cocktails \u2014 out of a paper cup? That’s what the future holds for Delta Air Lines passengers. This month, the Atlanta-based carrier announced it’s beginning final testing on a new paper cup that would replace all of the plastic cups currently used on 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would you feel about drinking your inflight soft drinks \u2014 or cocktails \u2014 out of a paper cup? That’s what the future holds for Delta Air Lines passengers. This month, the Atlanta-based carrier announced it’s beginning final testing on a new paper cup that would replace all of the plastic cups currently used on…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/travelaffiliatewebsite.com\/mer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6822"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/travelaffiliatewebsite.com\/mer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/travelaffiliatewebsite.com\/mer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travelaffiliatewebsite.com\/mer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travelaffiliatewebsite.com\/mer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6822"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/travelaffiliatewebsite.com\/mer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6824,"href":"https:\/\/travelaffiliatewebsite.com\/mer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6822\/revisions\/6824"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travelaffiliatewebsite.com\/mer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/travelaffiliatewebsite.com\/mer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travelaffiliatewebsite.com\/mer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travelaffiliatewebsite.com\/mer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thepointsguy.global.ssl.fastly.net\/us\/originals\/2023\/12\/delta-paper-cups.jpg?width=3840\"\/)
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<\/picture>\nWhen will Delta switch to paper cups?<\/h2>\n