Aer Lingus has signed on to a program to donate its used inflight blankets to animal rescue charities in Ireland, promising a warm winter to hundreds of dogs and cats.
Those airline blankets—the ones that either keep you warm in-flight, or keep your head propped up, or most often end up on the floor at your feet—turn out to have a lifespan not much longer than a mayfly’s. Aer Lingus says they’re washed and re-used only three times, and would otherwise end up in a landfill.
The program started after a request by an Aer Lingus inspired by his own adoption of a rescue dog. The airline will turn over all the blankets it would have dumped, and they will be shared among groups, with priorities going to smaller programs that don’t have big resources.
