JAL "Shades Closed Exercise"

After conducting the trial back in July, Japan Airlines has decided to implement the closed shades energy saving measure across 17 domestic airports in Japan and 5 airports overseas.

JAL has implemented this measure in Haneda, Itami, Kansai, Fukuoka, New Chitose, Okinawa, Kagoshima, Nagoya Komaki already. Starting from October 1 2009, JAL will extend this to Chubu, Komatsu, Hiroshima, Tokushima, Takamatsu, Matsuyama, Nagasaki, Oita, and Miyazaki and the five international airports: Honolulu, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Guam and Taipei.

Passengers will be requested to help closing the shades before leaving the aircraft. The ground staff will be closing the rest of the shades. This helps reduce the temperature inside the aircraft and will therefore require less energy to cool down the aircraft. JAL will be doing this starting from October 1 2009.

Looks like all of my coming JAL flights will be arriving at the participating airports and I will have the chance to help save the world (and JAL LOL). But I would say even if your flight does not arrive in one of the participating airports, you should still go ahead and close the shades. Every little thing helps :)

Source: JAL Press Release (By the way the Japanese version has a different picture of a cabin attendant closing the shade...interesting)