Galley Gossip: Airline for sale!

This is it, people, your chance to buy an airline, because Volare Airlines, an Italian low-cost carrier, is now up for sale – again!

What’s that? Not enough money you say? Why don’t we all pool our money together and buy…oh I don’t know…maybe just one of the airplanes. We can each buy a seat. And since we’d only own one airplane, we can call our small little airline MY PLANE. That means when someone asks, “what airline did you travel on,” you can then say, “My Plane,” and mean it, because it is your plane, as well as my plane.

We’ll take votes and fly the most popular route once a day. But the real beauty of owning My Plane is this…I would…I mean WE would get to design it from the bottom up. Just the way we want. And because we’d only want the best for My Plane, which is also your plane, I’d like to make a few suggestions..

After reading all 754 comments from my post Flight Attendant Pet Peeve #1, Answer Please! it’s apparent we should only hire flight attendants from one of the Asian carriers. Why? Passengers, at least the ones who commented on my post, seem to love them. Hey, what’s not to love about an airline that hires flight attendants who are all the same uniform size – small. That makes complete sense – one size uniform for the one and only airplane. Forget equal opportunity, we make the rules at this airline! And while we’re at it making those rules, how about we only allow one size of passenger onboard – small of course, which will help save fuel. As you know, saving on fuel is the name of the game these days. Which is why that small passenger can only bring onboard one small bag and place it under the small seat. The small flight attendant will then serve a small meal to the small passenger with the small bag under the small seat and…wait a minute…we’re not talking about us, are we? I think we are. We’re the ones traveling on My Plane, remember? So scratch that. But we can still steal a few of those Singapore Airline girls, but make them funny, like the good people at Southwest Airlines.

Of course we’d have to include Virgin’s beauty therapy services on My Plane. Trust me when I tell you that I’ll be the first one in line for a manicure and massage. Yes, I know, I am working the flight, but don’t forget, when the flight attendant is happy, the passenger is happy. Or is it the other way around? I can’t remember. I’m too numb from my massage to remember. But all you need to remember is that you’re getting all this for Jet Blue prices. Could it get any better?

As for the flight attendant uniforms, personally I’d like to go with the Air France uniform. Have you seen it? Hello – can you say LOVE IT! As in Love it – Love it! As in there aren’t enough “love’s” in a sentence to possibly describe how I feel. That’s how much I love it. Seriously, if the airline I currently work for now had to merge with another airline, can we please please please merge with Air France! Please. Not that I want to merge. No flight attendant wants to merge. Not when seniority is involved. Because seniority, at an airline, is everything. More than everything. But if I HAD to merge, well that uniform might be kind of nice to merge into. Since it’s My Plane, and my uniform, it’s all about me, on My Plane. Oh and you, too. I guess.

What kind of food would we serve? That’s easy. Cathay Pacific, I hear, has the best food in the industry. At least that’s what The Husband once wrote via email from a Cathay flight. Let me tell you that email was long, and dedicated strictly to food. Apparently the food on Cathay is THAT good, as in two pages of email good. And who doesn’t want good food on a flight? I know I do. Which is why I always bring my own from home. When I can remember to bring my own from home. Which isn’t often. Since I don’t cook, that much, from home. Not since the husband made me promise never to cook again. Anyway, you know it’s all about the food on a flight, right? I mean isn’t that what you look for in an airline when you’re booking a trip? Of course it is. Otherwise you wouldn’t be complaining so much about the bad food. Or lack of food.

We should really go with Virgin Atlantic’s cabin interior. Neon florescent red and blue lights glowing throughout the cabin are definitely a must. Especially on a red eye flight. They scream HAPPY! Why, because you’re happy, happy to be on My Plane! Which also includes Virgin’s in-flight seat to seat chat. I wonder if that chat extends between passengers and flight attendants? If so, that means you can leave home without your stealth secret sound amplifier, the one you bought from Skymall, the same one I mentioned in my last post, the top five skymall gifts for the frequent flier (that’s you!) and just text me your drink order. Wouldn’t that be nice? And perhaps we could chat a little. Really get to know each other. Oh wait, you see someone cute oboard? Me, too! Just send that person a little text and don’t forget to add your seat number – in case that person happens to be wearing a very sophisticated blue uniform and wants to slide you a drink on the house for umm…ya know…for being so nice and all.

So whadaya say…should we go for it?

Cage match: Eurostar versus Easyjet

We’ve all seen the one cent ultra-cheap fares that Ryanair, Easyjet and and other low cost carriers (LCCs) frequently offer from European hubs. It’s a great way to skip around the EU if you’re flexible and haven’t got a lot of cash; it thus has recently become pretty popular with students and vacationers on a limited budget.

And as most of us know, the one cent fares come with strings attached. Taxes and fees can add multiple dollars and fees and constraints on routings often require you to travel to an out-of-the-way airport in order to catch a flight at a strange time of the day. Additionally, extra charges during transit such as baggage and meal purchases can add further cost to an airplane journey.

Needless to say, when traveling over a longer distance, it’s usually a good idea to take the low cost carrier, plan well and be frugal during your travels. But over shorter distances accessible by rail or coach, that line blurs.

Eurostar, for example, recently started offering high speed rail service between London and Paris at very competitive rates. While none of their fares sink as low as the one cent LCC sales that frequently surface, their service runs direct between downtown London and Paris, has looser restrictions on baggage and ultimately saves transit time.

What’s the savings, you ask? On a recent trip between the office in Loughborough and my sister’s apartment in Paris I decided to run a comparison. I’ve calculated the price of transit from city-center to city-center with Eurostar versus Easyjet, the only budget carrier to connect between the two cities. I’ve also included any additional fees for transit to airports, taxes and baggage, then tabulated the costs side by side. For ease, I’ve converted everything to dollars so you can see the easiest comparison across numbers. Take a look:

EasyJet Eurostar
Ticket 15.7 98
Tax 61 0
Two bags checked 31.92 0
Train ticket between London Victoria and Luton 21.8 0
Train between Charles De Gaulle and Gare Du Nord 12 0
Total 142.42 98
Total transit time 5 hours 3 hours

The result? In the end, Eurostar ends up saving you time and money. Combined with the comfort and timeliness of the service, the high speed train is the easy pick when traveling between London and Paris.
On my most recent Eurostar journey I paid an extra 116$ to travel on leisure select. This involved a secluded seat to myself, free champaign, hot bangers and mash and bottomless coffee over the entire journey. When you compare the 214$ total price against Easyjet’s 142$, I think its still worth it for the hot food, time saved and comfort.

So next time you’re considering that low cost carrier for your short intra-european trip, make sure you thoroughly check your options. While trains and coaches don’t necessarily have the romantic allure of one cent fares, they may ultimately end up saving you time and money.

East and West Coasters: Virgin America releases 25% off code

For those of you blue-staters out there looking to non-stop across the country, Virgin America (VX) just released a 25% off code redeemable on any of their flights.

Virgin America, in case you’re wondering, is the domestic Low Cost Carrier (LCC) arm of Virgin Airlines, the British based international airline and part of the Virgin empire. They’ve been flying since August of this year and fighting for their share of the non-stop transcon market.

This means that in addition to your normal service they’ll be offering other perks to try to win your business. Televisions in your seats. MP3’s. Power. Mood lighting.

VX flies from their hub in San Francisco among New York City, Washington DC, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, so if you’re a red-stater or just unlucky like me, you have to take a pass on this one. I’ll dig up something for us later.

Use code ELEVATE25 to book before 2359 on December 7th to take advantage.