Why Budget Airlines Could Soon Charge You to Use the Bathroom

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/if-everyone-went-to-the-bathroom-before-boarding-the-plane-ticket-prices-might-be-lower/

by ryan_j_naughton • 12 years ago

26 56 12 years ago

fivethirtyeight.com

justnotsure• 12 years ago

The whole article is based on false pretense that fuel prices are highest in the known history. The fuel price have been stagnant for the past 60 years. If you use real money, i.e. gold or silver. Fuel prices, food prices, healthcare cost, etc. are all flat line price chart as long as you use real money. Once you use ever-dropping and hugely inflated USD or EUR, all prices seem to rise. Seem is very important here because in fact they don't rise at all. What happens is that the measure we use - USD - is collapsing in value. It's like saying cars are faster and faster, but every year lowering value of meters in 1 km. I.e. this year 1 km is equal to 1,000 meters, next year it will be equal to 980 meters, and yet next year it will be 950 meters, so on. So in 2024, 1 km can be as little as 760 meters.

A lot of economic news or developments don't make sense unless you understand that we have lived in permanent inflationary times for the past 50 years.

grecy• 12 years ago

If the article was written with your perspective, the airlines would still save a lot of real money if they could find inventive ways to reduce weight, and therefore burn less fuel, irrelevant of the price of fuel.

sebular• 12 years ago

I'm sorry, but your claims sound absurd. Do you have an economic background? What data are you basing that on?

I'm neither claiming expertise with oil or economics, but some cursory Google searches seem to strongly disagree with what you're claiming. Just taking from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_of_petroleum

Adjusted for inflation, our current oil prices appear to be equivalent to 1860s era prices, which places them at 4 - 5 times higher than they've been for the entire intervening period.

Not to mention oil prices being subsidized in the US, your claim that the "true cost" of oil hasn't risen seems totally nuts. Care to elaborate?

a_c_s• 12 years ago

This isn't true: gold prices have varied wildly relative to the price of the dollar.

For example, gold was at $1780/oz as of September 2012, and is now at $1326/oz, a difference of -34%. Prices for goods and services have not fallen 34%. On average the prices for consumer goods have increased by a few percent in dollar terms, so an ounce of gold will buy you less than 34% of what it would have two years ago.

Intelligent comparisons of prices are done with inflation-adjusted dollar values rather than gold-adjusted values for a reason.

herge• 12 years ago

Right, but most of our economy is controlled by the price of labor. How have prices compared to the median wage? How much fuel could an average worker buy in 1960 compared to today?

relix• 12 years ago

Inflation isn't some magical unknown force. Every comparison of historical value includes inflation adjustment. Of course prices rise over time, of course currency devalues over time. Everyone is aware of that.

What is this 'real' money you speak of? You mean the relatively extremely volatile value of Gold and Silver? Did you even check a graph of the inflation-adjusted gold or silver price for the past 30 years? Here, I'll link you: http://www.macrotrends.net/1333/gold-and-silver-prices-100-y...

So is the 'true' value of gold $400 inflation-adjusted dollars or $1800 inflation-adjusted dollars?

crpatino2• 12 years ago

The fuel price have been stagnant for the past 60 years. If you use real money, i.e. gold or silver.

Since most people would disagree that gold and silver are real money, the burden of proof is on your side. I think an equally compelling explanation for your observations can be built from the premise that gold in particular has been inflating an speculative bubble during the same time frame of 50+ years (or more precisely, that since about the 2nd half of 20 century gold price had been recovering from a previous drop in historic prices, and that a bubble has formed around that pattern and just began to inflate about ~10 years ago).

If on the other hand you consider the fact that petrol is a finite resource, and that the challenges to build a flying device powered by either nuclear energy, solar, wind or hydro, it is very likely that tourist class aviation will be in permanent decay from now on.

I think the capacity to fly is extremely valuable, so it will be preserved by nation states for as long as possible, mainly for military purposes, but also for the rapid transportation of diplomats and other high ranking officials. And if the technical capacity of flying is preserved in any way, the upper layers of civil society will find a way to buy their ways in as well (bringing back the original meaning of the term "jet set" as a side effect). But, mark my words... the days of regular, scheduled flights for the hoi polloi are numbered.

tommycli• 12 years ago

If we didn't have cheap petrol, we'd use nuclear, solar, wind, or hydro to produce somewhat-less-cheap ethanol.

It might be twice as expensive, but most people would still be able to fly.

MProgrammer• 12 years ago

I would rather they took the fuel based component out of the ticket price, then charged you an amount at the gate based on the total weight of everything you are bringing on the plane, including yourself. Then you can pay less by bringing less, or pay more to bring more. A gram's a gram.

rett12• 12 years ago

That could be considered as discrimination against big tall men(not overweight). Another thing is luggage.

bluthru• 12 years ago

That's like saying it's discrimination that a tall person has to buy more food to survive.

chrisBob5• 12 years ago

Is there anything wrong with discrimination against tall people? It has nothing to do with their age, race, gender or sexual preference, so I think height and weight may actually be fair game.

DavidBradbury• 12 years ago

In order for it to be discrimination, it has to be 'unjust' - There is nothing unjust about having larger people pay more because it costs a business more to fly them. If anything, it is unjust that smaller people have to subsidize the cost of others.

mjb• 12 years ago

Using the model from the article, about 33% of the ticket price is total fuel cost, and 16.5% ($1300 of $7900) is 'weight marginal' fuel cost. Combining these two gives us 5.4% of ticket cost on a full airliner is weight marginal fuel cost.

Extracting 5.4% of the ticket price and making it pay-by-weight (or, rather, by the proportion of the total margin weight you make up) seems fair. On the other hand, 5.4% is a pretty small number compared to the other costs associated with "pay by weight". Lots of people would be, justifiably or not, angry about paying more because they are fatter, taller, or not a child even if that is only a few dollars per hundred on the ticket price.

On the other hand, as a tall person I would strongly support being able to pay marginally more for more legroom. Many airlines do this with a tiered model ('premium economy', 'extra comfort', etc), and it works really well for me.

chrisBob5• 12 years ago

I am all for charging more to heavier passengers. I appreciate that the first class cabin subsidizes my flight, and I hate the fact that my ticket is more expensive so that the big guy who is invading my personal space doesn't have to pay extra because I am paying an equal share.

People would plan and pack differently if they weren't shielded from the economics of flight this way.

I have been on a few non-commercial flights, and they always make me step on a scale before I get on the plane.

WalterBright2• 12 years ago

I have been on a few non-commercial flights, and they always make me step on a scale before I get on the plane.

The weight variation makes a big difference for smaller airplanes. Big airplanes can use a statistical average for weight calculations, but small ones cannot.

The weight calculation is necessary to compute fuel load and takeoff distance, for example.

As I recall, there was a major airline crash once because the airplane was overweight compared to its calculated weight. Since then the airlines revised the average passenger weight upwards.

zacinbusiness3• 12 years ago

Invade your personal space? Really? Your personal space? You entitled piece of shit.

omegant2• 12 years ago

Then just taking in to account the overweight rates at the USA, you are insulting more than half your possible costumers that will happily throw their money at your competition. Ryanair has discovered this after years calling their own passsengers idiots that will take anything for flying for 20€. Lots of Ryanair passengers now fly with Easyjet , Vueling, etc... And Ryanair is changing the saving rules to avoid loosing more market.

pkaye2• 12 years ago

Make sure to subtract the extra labor cost of doing all these measurements and the loss of customers in implementing this policy.

uptown• 12 years ago

Airlines love shifting revenue from ticket prices onto ancillary fees. Why? Because they're not subject to the same taxation as the revenue generated by the ticket price.

"The government funds a large portion of the aviation system through a 7.5 percent tax on the price of a commercial airline ticket as well as taxes on certain kinds of aviation fuel. But the Treasury Department considers charges outside the base cost of a ticket to be exempt from that tax."

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/baggage-airline-fee-re...

It's basic tax-avoidance. If they need to raise an extra $5 per seat, they're better off increasing the price charger per bag than they are increasing the ticket prices, and that's exactly what has been happening.

WalterBright2• 12 years ago

I'm surprised it took so long to start doing this.

omonra• 12 years ago

Aren't those taxes passed to the fliers already? Ie for me the cost of tax usually exceeds the cost of the actual flight ticket.

volune• 12 years ago

Shitting my pants and sharing odor that with the rest of the cabin will still be free, right?

omegant2• 12 years ago

Some fuel saving measures now studied by airlines are:

-slower speeds to save 100kg of fuel at a 2 hour flight -lower flap setting for landing, requires less thrust for the last 4 min of flight. But it requires more landing distance. -less water on the tanks for the toilets. 60kg less for 100 flights means a significa t saving. -ipads instead of 40 kilos of flight manuals for the cockpit. -taxing with only one engine (this is an old trick) -higher cruise level. -better radar control coordination. A direct vectors can save you minutes of flight. In aproach up to 10min -cleaner aircraft, to avoid drag. -adjusting the lubricating grease for the landing gear and flight controls. Excess uneccesary leaking grease means more weight. -lighter seats -lighter cabin apliances -even more important are newer aiplanes. It used to be normal seeing 20y/o+ airplanes flying in USA and Europe. Now anything older than 12 years is using 20% more fuel than newer versions. This is specially important for long haul airliners like jumbos a340, 767, 777 etc...

joesmo• 12 years ago

The article doesn't actually answer its own question fully. It does not list the estimated cost savings of removing a bathroom (I assume that's how they would save money but the article is incomplete) or of the weight saved by empty bladders vs. full ones. It also assumes that such removal wouldn't have any effect on longer flights, such as international ones, which are often conducted using the same planes. Even the flight listed form Boston to Denver is four and a half hours. It's unlikely that this would keep most people from using the bathroom at least once, even if they had used it before the flight. So the reasoning is flawed across the board and the article incomplete. The other numbers are quite interesting, however.

madsushi• 12 years ago

It did mention the difference between full/empty bladders:

So if every passenger remembered to go to the bathroom before boarding, shedding an average of 0.2 liters of urine, the airline would save $2.66 in fuel on this flight alone.

ubernostrum• 12 years ago

It also assumes that such removal wouldn't have any effect on longer flights, such as international ones, which are often conducted using the same planes.

It is important for your argument to distinguish international and inter-continental flights. I have been on international -- in the sense of crossing a border and landing in a different country -- flights operated on CRJs. But those are short 30- or 45-minute hops from somewhere in the northern US to somewhere in Canada.

The article's example aircraft is the Boeing 737-700, which can be and is used for intra-north-America (Aeromexico flies them to several US destinations, for example) international flights, intra-Europe flights, etc., but is not used for inter-continental flights, which are generally beyond its operating range.

Aside from the anomaly of BA's specially-configured A318s which fly LCY-JFK (and which can't take off fully loaded at LCY due to runway length, necessitating a fuel stop at SNN on the westbound leg), the smallest aircraft regularly operating such flights is the Boeing 757. And even it is limited in the routes it can fly, often requiring fuel stops based on wind and weather conditions; only the actual widebodies have the natural range necessary to do those routes consistently.

Also, when international-configuration aircraft are used domestically in the US, it is almost always a positioning flight for which tickets happen to be sold (i.e., a plane landed at Hub A and needs to operate a flight from Hub B, so will fly that route, or needs to get from a maintenance hub to the hub it will actually depart from for international operations), or a temporary sojourn from base for a seasonal flight (US Airways, for example, occasionally flies its A330s to Orlando to carry Disney visitors, but keeps them close enough to its international base at PHL to get them back when needed). Those aircraft also are configured differently; the biggest difference from a passenger perspective is the existence of genuine business class or even three-class configuration, which is rare on domestic flights -- typically only the ultra-premium routes like JFK-LAX and JFK-SFO are operated domestic three-class.

notahacker• 12 years ago

Airline executive Michael O'Leary's comments about charging you to use the bathroom were a "we're cheap" publicity stunt; no more and no less.

Sure, there's almost an infinitude of theoretically possible micro and macro optimizations that can improve airlines' profitability, especially across 133 million passengers (that's a lot of olives) but most of them aren't quite as promising as they seem. Save fuel by replacing heavyweight but durable IFE system with iPads, for instance? Bet you spend more than the actually realizable fuel savings replacing broken or stolen iPads. By my calculations you lose money if approximately 1 ticket holder in 1000 doesn't return their $250 iPad intact, based on the original article's $32.7M cost saving (25 cents per passenger) even without considering costs of actually rolling them out and phasing out the IFE in the first place. Needless to say, forcing passengers to empty their bowels before flight could have more significant effect on airlines costs and ticket sales. Even Ryanair is on a charm offensive after taking the "we're so cheap we don't care what our customers think schtick too far)

If you really want to save weight or microoptimise revenue the excess passenger weight charge can has been implemented... in Samoa.

dkokelley• 12 years ago

By my calculations you lose money if approximately 1 ticket holder in 1000 doesn't return their $250 iPad intact

Why not install the iPads in the seat backs? It doesn't have to look any different than another IFE, so long as it saves on weight. I'm not sure that it would be worth the cost of retrofitting, but for a new plane it would definitely be worth looking into, provided that the upfront investment is comparable.

old-gregg• 12 years ago

What would happen if an airline published their pricing in $/lbs? You'll know your price only after checking in your bags and getting into a plane by stepping through a scale.

First of all, would that be legal? Secondly, how would that affect the consumer behavior and the competition?

seanmcdirmid2• 12 years ago

A lot of the weight on an airplane is fixed, so there would still be a fixed charge to add before weight.

I'm also sure many would avoid an airline where weighing in was required, even if that meant paying substantially more to competitors, the airlines wouldn't save enough to make up for lost business.

Why Budget Airlines Could Soon Charge You to Use the Bathroom

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