In the "About Ckufing Time" category, a move so blindingly obvious that its delay could have been choreographed by the Hong Kong government, Air Asia (following a similar move by Malaysia Airlines) is creating child-free zones on its flights.
Yes, please roll out the usual argument about the need for others to be tolerant (err ... why?) rather than the need for oneself to be considerate. Good, that's that dealt with.
Airlines have long been masters at differential pricing, and they already board passengers with yound children first, so there would be nothing new about simply allocating the seats at the back to people travelling with their delightful bundles of joy, just like they used to do with smokers (maybe stick a curtain up in front of the section), so they're all together, and charging a little less to those still willing to sit nearby and a little more to those of us who want to be nowhere near. That would fit in neatly with boarding them first, surely, and it would incidentally test their own tolerance. Or is that different?
I always dream of sitting next to an attractive young woman on a 12-hour flight; when it finally happens, I spend half the flight at the back of the plane when she turns out to be an old cow with Multiple Personality Disorder.
ReplyDeleteThrough your good offices and extensive contacts, could you arrange for all those with a screaming Inner Child to be sat at the back too?
You raise an excellent point, Ulie. Surely there can be some sort of Benthamite algorithm to maximise happiness and produce seat allocations such that the most desirable (in whatever sense) neighbours get the best seats near one another. And such that the types which right-minded people dread end up in some sort of ghetto near a single shared toilet.
ReplyDeleteI would include fat people in this. Stick all the lard arses in the back row so their rolls of blubber meet in the middle rather than flow into normal people's seats.