Not A Mystery

Airlines and Cable Networks, two of our most popular industries today.

If you ignore the Banks.

Sign up for Cable and you get more channels than you need or want. You’ve been bundled.

Get on an Airline and nothing is included in the price of your ticket. You’ve been unbundled.

And yet, as a consumer, it all feels the same.

What's Not To Like?

I’m not saying we should regulate them.

That would be too good.

Shakespeare had it right, even in 1600 he could see these guys coming.

To be or not to be– that is the question:

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And, by opposing, end them.

- Hamlet

It is entirely possible that Airlines will soon revoke the law of diminishing returns.

And I’m not talking about their profits, but instead their ability to come up with new ways to tack on charges.

United Airlines has just begun to offer a new ‘service’, which they’ve dubbed Premier Line.

Board the airplane sooner and get earlier access to overhead bin space with Premier Line. You’ll also enjoy the benefits of priority check-in and priority security, where available. Premier Line is now offered in all United® and United Express® airports in the U.S.

So United will now charge you to board the aircraft earlier than your seat-mates. They should more honestly call it ‘Front Of The Line’, but that would invoke images of class warfare.

There Is Really No End In Sight

They’ve figured out that as more people bring along carry-on baggage, overhead bin space is becoming a scarce resource, and passengers  will pay for a leg-up so to speak.

And how much will they pay? The ad says it is ‘starting’ at $9, but we know that’s a teaser.

So I checked it out on my favorite San Francisco to London flight. In that real world case the actual charge $39 per passenger, one-way.

That doesn’t really guarantee you anything except the opportunity to stand closer to the door.

I’m not sure how many passengers will jump at this option, but I think there would be a larger market for the opportunity to get off the plane earlier.

What do theatre owners and airline executives have in common?

Nothing.

Well, actually they do both provide their services to seated customers, which should imply some sort of similarity. But in practice nothing of the sort.

While the airlines constantly shrink their seats and services, theatre owners at least have a different take on customer satisfaction.

… theaters across the country [are] expanding the width of … seats and increasing … leg room, or row spacing …

“We want to err a little bit on the roomier side, because over the last 50 years Americans have gotten a little plumper,” [New York] City Center’s senior vice-president and managing director, Mark Litvin, said, “and we find these larger seats are much more comfortable for people.”

… Theatre Projects Consultants, a theater-development firm, found that the average standard width of seats in performing-arts theaters has expanded from 21 to 22 inches over the last two decades, “primarily due” to the concurrent rise in obesity. Over the course of the entire last century, the average width increased from 19 to 21 inches.

Source

If, like me, you spend your airtime crammed in coach you will be impressed with the ‘pitch’ on these seats.

The airlines might try to claim that frequent flyers are not succumbing to obesity like their theatre-going cousins.

But given that they now force some customers to purchase two tickets if they require a seatbelt ‘extender’, that excuse just won’t fly.