Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Ryanair Wants You To Stand Up For Air Travel

I've heard of standing-room only, and I've heard of flying stand-by, but flying standing up?
English cheapie airline, Ryanair, plans to sell £5 tickets--roughly $7.50 American--for standing-room only flights.
Michael O'Leary, Ryanair's chief executive, also announced new proposals that will include charging customers to use the loo. He said that charging customers £1 to use the facilities will encourage travellers on one hour flights to use airport bathrooms instead of airplane bathrooms.

In addition to the coin-operated bathrooms, O'Leary added: "The other change we've been looking at is taking out the last 10 rows of seats so we will have 15 rows of seats and the equivalent of 10 rows of standing area."
This "standing" area with "vertical seats" will be introduced at the back of its fleet of 250 planes, and a Ryanair spokesman has said that Boeing has already been consulted over refitting the fleet with "vertical seats" which would allow passengers to be strapped in while standing up, which would cost between £4 and £8 per person.
However, a spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority--the English FAA--has said the plans would struggle to meet safety requirements: "It's aviation law that people have to have a seat-belt on from take-off and landing so they would have to be in a seat. I don't know how Mr O'Leary would get around that one. During turbulence passengers also have to have a seat-belt on."

I think I'll pass on the standing up and flying.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:40 AM

    I don't know. I have a hard time seeing this work. I guess I'd have to see how comfy it all was.

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  2. good grief! Next they'll want to strap passengers to the wings...

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  3. Anonymous12:22 PM

    Stand up seats? Oooh, oooh! Sign me up, sign me up! (How do these 'tards take themselves seriously?)

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  4. I could understand the bathroom charge. If the flight is only one hour, how many cocktails or beers can one consume? But having SRO seating on a plane? I'd hate to be standing there if the plane suffered turbulence or had a rough landing.

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