Airlines trying to reduce fares, cut “frills.”
Flying is one of the most expensive forms of transportation.
Airlines are always looking for ways to make flying cheaper, so more people will choose it over less expensive types of transportation like trains or cars.
One way airlines reduce the cost of flights is to make passengers pay for any frills or extras such as meals, drinks, checked baggage and — as with one airline in Europe — even use of the washroom. Ireland’s Ryanair makes passengers pay one British pound to use the bathroom on the plane with a coin slot in the side of the door.
Now, a company called Aviointeriors has invented a new type of airline seat. It gives passengers less leg room than traditional seats, allowing airlines to pack more people into a plane. More people per plane means a lower cost for each person’s airline ticket.
The new seat resembles a saddle and provides just 58 cm of leg room compared with the 81 cm of leg room offered by traditional airline seats.
With the new seats, passengers would bear most of their weight on their legs, so the seats would only be useful for short flights, of no more than three hours.
The seats apparently feel like you’re sitting in a saddle. They have a hook to hang your purse or coat on.
Several airlines have expressed an interest in purchasing the new seats.
CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS
Writing/Discussion Prompt
If you were the owner of an Airline, would you buy these seats for your planes? Make a list with the reasons why it’s a good idea and the reasons it’s a bad idea.
Reading Prompt
As you read this article, you probably thought about whether these new seats would be a good idea. Readers make these types of judgments all the time as they read. What information in the article made you think it was a good or bad idea?
Primary
Express personal opinions about ideas presented in texts (OME: Reading: 1.8)
Junior
Make judgements and draw conclusions about the ideas and information in texts and cite stated or implied evidence from the text to support their views (OME, Reading: 1.8)
Grammar Feature: The Long Dash
Long dashes can be used in a sentence on either side of extra information. But how do you know if it’s extra information or not? No problem. You can tell if a sentence has extra information by trying to read the sentence without the words between the long dashes. If the sentence still makes sense without these words, the long dashes have been used correctly. Try it with the sentence below.
One way airlines reduce the cost of flights is to make passengers pay for any frills or extras such as meals, drinks, checked baggage and—as with one airline in Europe—even use of the washroom.
