Mar 4th 2011, 16:27 by A.B.
Three gobbets for today:
• Allegiant has come up with a new way to share the pain of rising oil prices with passengers. It has filed a request with America's Department of Transportation for permission to sell a type of flexible ticket. The purchase price would be less than a normal ticket's, but it could subsequently rise or fall (with the customer either paying more or getting money back) depending on oil-price flucutations between the purchase date and the flight date. The maximum possible price would be shown at the time of purchase. If you understand the oil market, then such a ticket could be worth a gamble. The Crankyflier blog has a good explanation.
• Emirates has the best in-flight food of any carrier, according to Skyscanner's poll of 1,200 passengers. Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, Aeroflot and Qatar Airways rounded out the top five.
• IF you name your premium-economy seating "Economy Comfort" (and we're looking at you, KLM and Delta), what not-very-subliminal message are you giving about the joys of your regular economy seating?
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Screw subliminal subjectivity.
They should just call it Cattle Class and fire all the marketing wonks who try to define it as something 'other' than what it actually 'is'.
This sure would be easy for Allegiant to cheat. No one knows how much fuel they hedged and at what price; we do know they're not paying the $7.02/gal for Jet A that the FBO at LAX gets, though.
Even tied to the price of a barrel of oil, it seems like a variable fuel surcharge is more a way to get publicity and let people gamble than it is a way to cover actual fuel costs.
At which class did Skyscanner compare the in-flight food? It should really be separated by category: First class, Business class, Economy Class, and (if applicable) Premium Economy.
Also, answering your question to KLM and Delta, the answer surely is "Economy Discomfort"....
Aeroflot?! Really? It must have, ahem, changed a bit in the past decade.
@Harry2001
Aeroflot is probably the only airline in the world that can still serve Caviar in flight, if only for First Class....