Just when you thought the 'service' provided by air carriers couldn't fall any farther, along comes Spirit Airlines to prove to us, yet again, that there's always further to fall.Yes, it's this Spirit Airlines that will, after August 1 of this year, begin charging passengers for carrying a bag on board. (They already charge to check a bag.) The fee to carry your own bag on the plane will be $30/bag if you pay in advance and $45/bag if you pay at the gate. (Members of their discount fare club -- people who pay $39.95 annually for the privilege of getting discounts on Spirit -- will have to pay only $20/bag. Such a deal!)
But wait. There's more!Spirit also announced, rather quietly, this week that they will also offer what they're calling 'pre-reclined' seating on their planes. What's pre-reclined seating, you ask as did I? Pre-reclined seating is Spirit's spin on seats that don't recline at all. These seats, they say, are lighter, have less moving parts (since they don't move at all!) and will, therefore, require less maintenance and less fuel to fly around.
What they're not telling anyone, though, is that if you have seats that don't move you can squeeze more of those seats into an aircraft cabin. Which, after all, is what Spirit wants to do: Pack each plane with as many people as entirely possible. And eliminating the reclining capability of a seat is one way to do it. All, of course, to increase revenue.
Am I alone in this, or does the image of canned sardines come to mind?
Which, of course, got me thinking. (Something I try not to do too often, as is evident by these posts.)
Rather than fight 'progress' being made by airlines as they struggle to wring ever last dollar from us, why not provide some much-needed help? So what if they're simultaneously draining our good faith, our interest in exploration, and, very sadly, the romance that was once air travel? So what if they're making what was once a luxurious and relaxing mode of transportation into one of the least comfortable, most anxiety-producing, infuriating way to get from one place to another? So what indeed!
I say it's time to help. (I'm a consultant. I'm here to help.)
So, in the spirit of Spirit Airlines, that brash innovator, that champion of the people, that crusader for revenue generation at all costs, we offer the following suggestions to airlines interested in following in Spirit's noble footsteps. Here, then, are our (initial) ideas about ways for airlines to gouge, er, create new revenue streams.
We suggest, most humbly, that airlines charge for:- Seat belts (like they're going to help if the plane goes down)
- Oxygen masks (I mean really. Should everyone get one?)
- Window seats (Oh, wait. Some already charge for this.)
- Aisle seats (Ditto.)
- A working light over your seat (Want to read, sir? That will be $5.)
- Calling for a flight attendant (Need help, ma'am? That will be $5.)
- Not sitting next to someone who we might politely refer to as 'super-sized' (defined as anyone who doesn't fit entirely in their own damn seat!)
- Not sitting next to someone with a lap baby
- Not sitting next to someone with a loud lap baby
- Not sitting next to someone who is loud, regardless of age
- Not sitting next to someone who wants to talk, even though you're wearing headphones, working feverishly on your computer to meet a deadline and have already said at least 10 times that you've got work to do (Dude, you know who you are!)
- Bathroom usage
(With an escalating scale where the fifth minute, say, is far more expensive than the first) - The order in which checked bags are returned
- Checked bags being returned at all
- Use of the jet bridge to board the plane, and, of course,
- Arriving at your actual destination (Hey, just because they said they were flying to JFK doesn't necessarily mean that they'll land there. There's always LaGuardia, Newark, or, for those unwilling to cough up the dough, the Hudson.)
If the airlines are hell-bent on screwing us, they'll have to do it all on their own.
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