This report was taken from The Onion. I wish I wrote it myself.
In its ongoing effort to cut transportation costs and boost profits, United Airlines announced Tuesday that it was exploring the feasibility of herding them into planes and stacking them like cordwood from floor to ceiling.
According to a press release, the company estimates that the new policy of simply arranging them in a towering mound will allow it to sell approximately 20 times more tickets per flight. In addition, executives claimed they would be able to eliminate the unnecessary cost of in-flight magazines, chairs, seat belts, blankets, bathrooms, headphones, and oxygen masks.
United officials said they conducted a test run in September during which they sent a flight from San Francisco to Denver and really jammed them all in there as hard as they could. Analysts found that 98 percent of them arrived safely at the correct destination, and of those who were lost or damaged, nearly all were eventually located.
Click here for the full article.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Before someone starts blasting this around the Interweb and the New York Times picks it up, let’s be sure to note… THE ONION IS SARCASM. Hilarious and clever, but sarcasm!
How the hell did they get that picture? (I looks like it came from an actual airport)
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/98960
As a 1K I’ve been on a few flights like this already this year and it wasn’t the SFO-DEN test flight. I believe I was given a 500 mile bonus for my inconvenience.
For years we joked that the airlines would one day charge to use the lav, and now Ryan Air is seriously talking about it. Today we joke about stacking them in like cords of wood, tomorrow some airline executive is going to think that it is a good idea.
I did not see the caption over the picture, but I started smelling an Onion even before I linked to the article. Happily, it made me cry.
Would somebody please tell the Onion to stop giving the airlines ideas? You know that someone at one of the legacy airlines is sitting there thinking, “Why didn’t we think of that first?!”
Many years ago, the late humorist Art Buchwald wrote about the airplane of the future, in which passengers would be stuffed in ten abreast. Everyone howled: “Oh, that Buchwald! What a wild imagination!”
Be careful what you fantasize.
@James
Yeah, that’s Dulles Airport…but it is obvious that the images of the people have been Photoshopped onto the baggage handler picture.
Ed
Some carrier WILL offer a version of this. Millions of price only travelers will book these “seats.” Then they will write to Consumer Traveler and complain that no one fluffed their pillow on their $89 transcon. The airline service of the 1950’s movies cannot be be purchaed on cheapseatsare us.com. If you want to travel as freight enjoy the cheap ride and quit whining. If you wnat better service, pay the price.