Pilots are being urged by airlines to slow down in order to reduce fuel costs and emissions. The cost of jet fuel has risen by a hefty 70% in the past year, forcing airlines to find a way to reduce their bills.

By reducing their speed, Belgium's Brussels Airlines anticipates a 1.1m euro saving. The US airline Southwest hopes they can cut their spending by $42m this year. The airlines predict they can save this much by reducing their speeds by only 10mph. For example, Norwest Airlines predicted a flight from Paris to Minneapolis at an average speed of 532mph instead of 542mph will save them 162 gallons of fuel and the trip will only be 8 minutes longer. Brussels Airlines hopes their trips will only increase by 2 minutes.

Airlines such as Easyjet and Ryanair have not yet caught on. Easyjet is carrying out a study to see if they should jump on the slow paced bandwagon while Ryanair said last week it "hoped the trend would not catch on in the UK". Virgin is attempting to cut costs at a different angle, by reducing the weight of their jets by using carbon fibre components.

Paul Charles of Virgin Atlantic said "We will save many millions of pounds more with our "weightwatchers" programme than the Americans can save by slowing down".

The strategy is not only being used by airplanes. The commercial shipping industry has caught on as well. German giant ships have been instructed to reduce their speeds from 23 knots to 20 knots.

However, some environmentalists believe it is too small of a step in the right direction. "Obviously any improvement is welcome, but really the issue is the huge increase in the number of planes and people flying over the coming years, rather than minor savings made with existing planes," said Charlie Kronick, aviation campaigner at Greenpeace.

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