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List of things an airline can get rid of
Christopher Elliot of The Travel Critic recently wrote a tongue in cheek and halfway serious post about other ways airlines might save money.
The tenor of the piece, I think, reflects the sad state several airlines have stooped to in their penny pinching ways. Consider the latest Continental Airlines' venture that Jeffery posted about this past week. Personally, I think reducing the size of carry-on luggage is a crappy idea.
But, I'm one of those people who eyed with interest the cargo pants that Benny Lewis wore in his video on how to pack for a 5-day trip with only a carry-on bag. No, I'm not one of those people who take up more room than my fair share. Plus, I'm not that big, so why not let me have those 6-inches of carry-on space that Continental wants to take away?
But, back to Elliot's ideas. Here's what he suggests might be dumped.
- The bathroom that doesn't work. As he's noticed, several planes that he has been on have at least one broken toilet. Get rid of that bathroom. Weight saved.
- Duty free carts. Who needs to buy that stuff on board a flight anyway? But, as Elliot points out, the carts do make the airlines money.
- Federal air marshals since they are not particularly cost effective at saving lives --and they fly for free
- In-flight magazines. (No, no, no Elliot. I NEED in-flight magazines. I read them from cover to cover.)
- A flight attendant. (Sorry, Heather)
- A pilot. (Sorry, Ken)
- XL passengers. Elliot is one of those. He points out that he's tall and lanky so he poses a bit of a problem when it comes to getting him to fit in the space that he is allotted.
Elliot is not totally serious about this list, but he does have a point about how annoyed a person can feel when, yet again, there's another change that may or may not make that much of a difference to airline economics. If people are disgruntled and unhappy consumers, that creates a problem, and he sees how flying is on its way to becoming a prison sentence.
For Elliot's reasons about why a pilot and a flight attendant could be dumped, check out his post.
If you look at René Ehrhardt photo, surely you can find something else to add to Elliot's list.
Here are some things the airlines probably WISH they'd gotten rid of!
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Anon Oct 27th 2008 9:01AM
What a waste of time to read
Charles Oct 27th 2008 9:04AM
Have you ever been on an international flight to a high tax country like Norway? The locals really go nuts for the duty free cart!
Drew Oct 27th 2008 9:21AM
Instead of getting rid of the duty free cart, why not get of the in-airport duty free? Why carry all the booze, perfume and tobacco thousands of miles by plane when there are far more efficient means of transport? Instead, the passenger could purchase duty free in their originating airport and pick this up at their destination airport when they land - not generally a problem as most of the duty free you see is the same wherever you go. In fact, it should be possible to check availability at destination when you buy the product. If it's available you pick it up there, if not, you take it with you.
Benny Lewis Oct 27th 2008 10:25AM
Thanks again for the reference to my video! :)
You can even tuck clothes into your back; I've done this when they wouldn't fit in my bag. It's an uncomfortable 10 minutes in the security line (I don't actually put everything in my pockets etc. until I'm at the airport), but it all comes out once I'm through. I also bring plastic bags to dump everything into and the air stewardesses presume I went crazy with duty free shopping ;)
Just to prove a point that you really can bring whatever you like, I flew home with dumbbells this year (in my jacket pocket), and I made it through no problem! If I had put everything in my bags that would have been over 35kg, and I went through with no checked luggage! Aaah loopholes :-P
Nick, take a chill pill! I'd be open to criticism of course, but just calling me a twat is childish.
I'll be making much more videos like this on my blog: http://www.irishpolyglot.com in a few languages. Subscribe (RSS or email) if you want to see more!
Benny Lewis Oct 27th 2008 10:48AM
Sorry for the comment about Nick - I copied this comment over from the link to my video on the other article on this site. Whoops!! :-P
Great list :) I keep trying to cut down on my weight that I keep forgetting the airline certainly contributes in their own ways...
derek martin Oct 27th 2008 11:48AM
The in-flight magazine makes the airline money too... it contains advertising. Totally agree about Federal Air Marshalls, though!
Jim Oct 27th 2008 12:56PM
Personally, and I don't mean to be rude here, but I really think anyone over 14 or 15 stone (200 pounds) should be charged extra for their flight.
Sounds fattist (and I suppose it is to a point) but passengers with heavy luggage get charged more as they're contributing to more fuel being used and in my belief the same logic applies to people that put away too much cake.
Mark from FL Oct 27th 2008 5:03PM
Nothing personal, but that comment shows just how neanderthal today's thinking is about size. We know so little about why people are thin or fat, yet so many assume a fat person is just one who eats out of control and doesn't exercise. This is equivalent to telling a drug addict or alcoholic "just stop using the stuff!". Yeah, like that works. Yes, the comment is "fattist" but it's out of a general societal ignorance about the problem.
Tristan Oct 30th 2008 7:10AM
Nah sorry Mark I don't buy that at all. Weight gain is not a disease - it's eating too much of the wrong thing and not having the self discipline to do exercise or control your diet.
I accept that a few people have a predisposition to being larger, but not the kind of size we're seeing in recent years. If that was even slightly true then there would be morbidly obese people in the third world, starving to death but still big with it.
I do accept that food can become an addiction though, but like a lot of drug or alcohol addicts that addiction is purely psychological. It's not until late stage addiction as the addict is poisoning themselves to death that it becomes physically linked.
I'm also not suggesting 'just stop eating', I think that people have a responsibility to change their attitude to food and take some personal responsibility, and not expect society to feel sorry for them and give them any kind of special dispensation. In the UK treating obesity related diseases is now the biggest single cost to the national health service - that means my tax pound is already paying for people that choose a big mac and fries over fruit, which I don't think should happen. Smokers are starting to have to contribute towards treatments for smoking related diseases for bringing it on themselves, obesity should be looked at the same.
And that includes paying extra for flights ;)
mrbum21 Oct 27th 2008 3:23PM
No bathrooms on a plane brilliant.
So in addition being packed like cattle into a space that is becoming increasingly too small for Americas expanding waste line, you prefer to allow the cattle to wallow in their own excrement. That would certainly make flying all the better.
Idiot
Ryan Oct 27th 2008 4:21PM
wow this was a notably crappy article.
Matt Oct 27th 2008 4:21PM
The only reason we need pilots is because people think Auto pilot is run by windows and they know how often windows crashes. Currently witht he amount of automatrion in current generation of aircraft we only need 1 pilot.
And I would like to say it is the airlines who got themselves into this mess they pushed for deregulation and we the customers got greatly reduced fares. WHen the airlines were regulated they made about 3% profit on every flight. And the only differerence between carriers was the service so we got spoiled and now we want the lowest fare so we will get less service. Do you really think that getting an inflight meal is worth a $50 price increase nope. And on the little add on charges if you take off 2 bages per flight on the large carriers you will savr well over 1 mil a year thats only 2 bags. In the end they are trying to make airtravel affordable. If you want to go back to the days of luxuary in the air push for reregulation and much higher fairs.