New Airline Selling England By The Pound
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 06. 9.08
London and Chicago, too. Airlines are getting so aggressive now, charging for extra luggage, cutting back on everything that adds weight to the plane. So let's get serious about it: why not charge passengers by the pound? They do it already with freight, and it really does make a difference in fuel consumption. (full disclosure: for me, a flight from Philly to LA would only cost three hundred bucks). Derrie-Air is also carbon neutral:
"The magic comes from our one of a kind "Sliding Scale"—the more you weigh, the more you'll pay. After all, it takes more fuel—more energy—to get more weight from point A to point B. So we will charge passengers based on how much mass they add to the plane. The heavier you and your luggage are, the more trees we'll plant to make up for the trouble of flying you from place to place." More information at ::Derrie-Air
From the ::Philadelphia Enquirer via ::Geekologie
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Weird. Fly Derrie-Air for some "Kick-Derriere" fares (Folks ; Forgive Me) ;)
Read the fine print at the bottom of the Derrie-Air page.
It does make an awful lot of sense to charge this way. Take it from a (lean) 215 pound person. Why charge extra, for weight, on luggage only and disregard the biggest weight factor altogether?
It's a joke. From their site: "The Derrie-Air campaign is a fictitious advertising campaign created by Philadelphia Media Holdings to test the results of advertising in our print and online products and to stimulate discussion on a timely environmental topic of interest to all citizens. All names, identities, characters, persons, whether living or dead, companies, situations, offers, products, services, and other information appearing in this campaign and the associated website are fictitious. Any resemblance to real or fictitious names, identities, characters, persons, whether living or dead, companies, situations, offers, products, services, or other information, is purely coincidental and unintentional. In other words, smile, we're pulling your leg."
In case anyone didn't notice this disclaimer at the bottom of the page: "The Derrie-Air campaign is a fictitious advertising campaign created by Philadelphia Media Holdings to test the results of advertising in our print and online products and to stimulate discussion on a timely environmental topic of interest to all citizens. All names, identities, characters, persons, whether living or dead, companies, situations, offers, products, services, and other information appearing in this campaign and the associated website are fictitious. Any resemblance to real or fictitious names, identities, characters, persons, whether living or dead, companies, situations, offers, products, services, or other information, is purely coincidental and unintentional. In other words, smile, we're pulling your leg."
The name is a play on the french word for behind.
going to thank me for posting this on the forum? :(
Joking aside, in an unregulated market we would already have seen predictable, common-sense efficiency maximizing moves like these (among others impossible to predict).
Of course in our forcibly politicized world, this is not a matter decided between the airline and its passengers; instead this decision is subordinate to political argument. Even if an airline wanted to do this, it would surely be violating some perverse interpretation of 'equal rights' or 'consumer protection' laws.
The costs of statism can be denominated many ways - in dollars or lives, leisure hours or rainforest acres, barrels of crude or carbon tons, or hundreds more - but these costs can scarcely be measured.
How can we afford this? It has to end.
Man, this would be great. People are just cargo anyway.
the fine print:
"The Derrie-Air campaign is a fictitious advertising campaign created by Philadelphia Media Holdings to test the results of advertising in our print and online products and to stimulate discussion on a timely environmental topic of interest to all citizens. All names, identities, characters, persons, whether living or dead, companies, situations, offers, products, services, and other information appearing in this campaign and the associated website are fictitious. Any resemblance to real or fictitious names, identities, characters, persons, whether living or dead, companies, situations, offers, products, services, or other information, is purely coincidental and unintentional. In other words, smile, we're pulling your leg."
It's completely absurd to charge by weight. I can't help that my genetics has determined my height at 6 feet 4 inches. I am a very healthy 195 pounds, any thinner and I would virtually vanish. And although I think it's an absurd measurement that doesn't account for muscle mass I am still within normal range on the BMI scale.
And let's be honest, if you are 5 feet tall and 100 pounds I feel for you, it would suck to be that short. But does that mean you should suddenly get to pay half as much as I do when you board a plane?
Not to mention this would never work as a business model in the US. All the 100 pound people would ride the airline charging by weight and all the 200 plus pound people would ride a standard airline. The method only works if heavier people ride the airline in proportionate numbers to balance the overall cost.