Ryanair to create standing room only planes

July 6, 3:04 PMDC Ireland & UK Travel ExaminerLaura Harrison McBride

Previous Next

4 comments Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the DC Ireland & UK Travel Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Subway of the air: Ryanair's overhead ads (Wiki commons)

Say it ain’t so, Ryanair! Ireland's Ryanair now wants passengers to stand so the airline can pack 30 percent more of them in while cutting costs 20 percent. Well, not standing exactly, but perched like so many performing seals on stools they are strapped onto. Bring on the row of harmonicas! Slap those flippers together; maybe a zookeeper…I mean cabin attendant…will throw you a fish.

Boeing is being considered to design such an aircraft. Question: Why not just get Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway (marvelously popular! everyone’s favorite transport! ubiquitous in the nation! ? sorry, I couldn’t help myself) to design a Flyway. Maybe a neat little seat and footrest, and a frame with a couple of wings attached that would flap fast enough to make us all into human hummingbirds, and we could then just zip around -- possibly not over oceans, but land masses anyway -- whenever we want?

And then, there’s this announcement about Ryanair:

"The airline last month announced plans to make passengers carry all their own luggage up to planes.

“Ryanair customers will carry all their bags and suitcases through security departure lounges rather than checking them in.

“They can carry aboard one piece of hand luggage, but leave any other baggage beside the aircraft to be loaded into the hold. They then pick it up the same way on arrival.

Actually, that idea doesn’t seem too bad. Everyone worries about lost luggage; no worries. No more cute acronym definitions, though, if all the airlines began doing that. I’d really miss this one: Alitalia. Arrived Late In Tokyo, Luggage in Amsterdam.

Oops. Problem. How will that passenger-carried luggage be thoroughly searched by government goons for contraband and bombs? Won’t that just slow everything down, while passengers queue up as personnel sift through their belongings? Oh, right; it isn’t about customer service. It’s about airline profits.

Silly me.