Airlines Add and Remove to Make Money

As oil prices rise it seems that airlines are actually doing something to help the consumer rather than harm him or her. So far, there are two schools of thought. The first is to save money while the second is to add value. It's pretty obvious which is the one less popular with any corporation. That aside, it's interesting to know that those of us who enjoy consuming media on planes are the ones who will suffer/benefit.

US Airways is taking the more traditional route of trying to save money in the face of rising oil prices. They've announced that they will be removing the in-flight movie capabilities of about ten percent of their passenger aircraft. How does removing a single DVD player from an airplane going to help save money? Well, for some odd reason they don't use some fifty-dollar DVD player they picked up from Buy.com. The systems they actually use weigh five hundred pounds. So, you can see how cutting them out might save them a few bucks on fuel.

So, that's all fine and good, assuming they don't charge ticket buyers more, despite their savings.

On the other hand, what will you do on those long boring flights without edited-for-Television movies to watch? Well, most of us have iPods or other media-playing devices that fit in the palm of our hands. At least, that's what US Airways is saying. However, what do you do if you forget to sync your podcasts or rip those DVDs before making that mad dash to catch your flight?

Well, American Airlines is adding a little value to the price of their plane tickets in a way that will keep you busy with any wifi-enabled device you've brought with you. That's right, AA will be giving wifi a whirl on fifteen of their passenger planes in testing that could take up to six months.

Seems odd for them to take so long to test it, considering the ubiquity of wifi these days. Everyone wants it, a lot of us have it in our homes.. Still, it's nice to see the airlines slowly catching up with the times. It's also nice to see at least some of them adding services instead of taking them away. Perhaps Internet routers are lighter than massive in-flight movie systems?

Sources: here and here

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