ChrisH

I remember hearing years ago that United Airlines decided to remove one olive from the salads they would serve on their flights. This saved them $30,000 per year.

Have any airlines looked into

1) Raise all fares by $10-$20. That is not a lot from a consumers stant point. I don't think too many would have a problem paying $210, instead of $200 for a ticket, for example. Of course, I would assume all of the airlines would have to do this to really make it work, but why not? If an airline has 1,500 flights per day, with an average of 100 passengers per flight, $10 extra per ticket could make $1, 500,000 per day, and $547, 500, 000 per year.

2) Stop serving drinks, and snacks on all flights that are less than 1.5 hours. I find it ridiculous sometimes when on a flight that is 45 mins and they are serving drinks. By the time they serve them all, we are landing. I would imagine it would save a lot of money to do away with that service on short flights. Leave the drinks and snakcs for longer flights, over 2 hours, for example. Afterall, I don't buy an airline ticket to get served drinks, I buy an airline ticket to get me from point A to point B.

3) Charge some kind of fee, like $1 or $2 per bag you check. That is not a lot of money, again, from the consumers stand point. But considering the large quantity of checked bags, that could be great revenue. If an airline has 1,500 flights per day, for example, and an average of 100 people on each flight, and 70 of those people check at least one bag, at $1 per bag, that could be $105,000 per day, and $38, 325, 000 per year for just charging $1 per checked bag.

Adding #1 and #3 together equates to about $585, 825, 000 per year, plus what ever the savings of #2 would be. Maybe I am missing something, or am calculating something wrong, but overall a passenger checking at least one bag would pay $11 extra ($10 fare increase, and $1 for the bag), and it makes the airline over half a billion per year.