It may be true, but I would expect this sort of waste is a drop in the bucket -- drop in the swimming pool, even -- compared to all the waste going on over the rest of the planet during the same time period.
That's not to say we shouldn't avoid waste, but this flight was a pretty momentous occasion (final delivery flight of a 747), and I think it's appropriate to mark that occasion in some unique manner. Burning a bunch of extra jet fuel doesn't seem all that inappropriate, especially considering the total amount of jet fuel burned in a given day.
That's pretty close. It could be a good chance to educate people, perhaps, without turning it into a buzzkill. "This plane burned 27 tons of fuel for that pretty pattern in the sky, but if that sounds like a lot of fuel just wait until you find out that planes burn a million tons every day!"
