As always, we are delighted when a reader offers a concrete suggestion as to how to improve the airline mess. Here is a terrific example from Mr. Bob Schaeneman.
I have a suggestion to save all of our financially strapped airlines.
I suggest that they all raise the price of soft drinks and water to $10
each, the price of movies to $25, the price of food to $50 per tray,
the price of having a ticket agent wait on them to $100 and the price
of their first piece of luggage to $200 (which by the way only
encourages people to carry gargantuan bags onto the planes and try to
cram them all into the overhead bins; pretty smart, huh?) They could
also put coin slots on the display monitors to check for departures and
arrivals, say $1.00 each viewing. And maybe another fee to use one of
the chairs at the terminal gate, say $5.00 per hour? Then, once they
have jacked up the prices of all the incidentals, the ticket itself
could actually be given to the customer free of charge!!! Seems like
an idea that might appeal to the airline marketing wizards, doesn't
it??? Feel free to pass these suggestions along to all the folks who
are so rapidly ruining what little positive image they have left.
Now seriously, how did it not
occur to the airlines to simply raise the price of each ticket $50 or
$100 bucks, with an explanation that the increase was for additional
fuel charges (which we all could have easily understood and related
to), leaving soft drinks, water, baggage and movies free??? Of course,
that wouldn’t have contributed to the airlines lousy image, which they
seem so skillful at creating.
