Impact of Inflation

With perhaps the exception of those that regularly fly First or Business Class, the first reaction of a person reading an article titled “Airlines May Start Treating Passengers `Like Freight” might be “Start?”

I think most people who have flown have had the experience of being treated more like cargo than people. But what this article is talking about is an idea being floated by airlines to cut cost and raise revenue. Airlines have already cut meal services, and American Airlines is charging $15 for each checked bag, but this new idea is worse.

Imagine two scales at the airline ticket counter, one for your bags and one for you. The price of a ticket depends upon the weight of both.

That may not be so far-fetched.

``You listen to the airline CEOs, and nothing is beyond their imagination,'' said David Castelveter, a spokesman for the Air Transport Association, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group. ``They have already begun to think exotically. Nothing is not under the microscope.'' He declined to discuss what any individual airline might be contemplating, including charging passengers based on weight.

As a horizontally challenged American, I can tell you I really don’t like that idea. It’s not even the money so much as the idea of having to get on a scale at the airport. That, I think, is why it would never actually happen. It would risk offending far more people than just raising fares.

Also speaking as a horizontally challenged American, I must object to what I perceive to be a horrible conspiracy in the Ice Cream Industry. When I was a kid I remember Ice Cream being sold in half-gallon containers. At some point those containers shrunk, becoming 1.75 quarts. First I noticed that Edy’s containers had shrunk to 1.5 quarts. Now I see Breyers has done the same thing.

If this keeps up I might not even get charged extra to fly….