Cattle Can Fly

The airlines continue to experiment with various ways to rapidly load and unload passengers. Given our status as “cattle” I think I have a suggestion. Perhaps you might think of more ways and can add them to the comments section.

Much of the loading time is consumed by people taking too long getting settled in their seats. You know, removing coats, stowing bags which only fit with much pushing and shoving under and over the seats, grabbing the wrong seat, etc.

The NFL and energy credits provide a solution. First, give the flight attendants stop watches and whistles. When a passenger takes longer then 10 seconds to stow their gear and get seated, blow a shrill whistle and penalize them $5 per second for “Delay of Flight.” If a passenger goes against the flow to put baggage overhead, they would be ejected from the flight for “illegal procedure” - and required to pay a $20 fine as well. If the passenger cannot lift his/her luggage into the overhead bin, whistle and fine them $20 for “false start.”

Now, the energy credits concept come to bear through distribution of revenue gained by fines. The revenue is distributed to those passengers that were able to assume their seat in less then 10 seconds. Distribution is pro-rata based on time under the specified 10 second limit.

Okay the idea needs a little work. I can envision some unscrupulous seatmate surreptitiously holding luggage while the other endeavors to hoist it into the bin and thus drawing a penalty. Even if flawed isn’t this a brilliant idea? Aren’t you glad you took the time to read this post?