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Dutch Airliner Uses Cooking Oil To Help Fuel Transatlantic Flights

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- A Dutch airliner is flying planes all the way from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Amsterdam, on a fuel mix that includes leftover oil from frying Cajun food in Louisiana.

The KLM flights from JFK are powered by a combination of 25 percent recycled cooking oil and 75 percent jet fuel.

After the first such flight on Friday, the new concept will be tested on 24 round-trip trans-Atlantic trips every Thursday for the next six months.

KLM executive Camiel Eurlings jokingly told the New York Post that ``it smelled like fries'' while the plane was being fueled.

The waste oil from frying up crawfish, cracklins and other Cajun specialties is refined at a plant near Baton Rouge, then trucked to JFK, the newspaper reported.

There is a similar operation powered by European food plants and restaurants, which supplies cooking oil for KLM flights headed the other way across the Atlantic Ocean.

KLM said the cooking oil reduces polluting carbon emissions by up to 80 percent.

What do you think about using cooking oil to fuel jets? Please leave your comments below...

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