Suddenly, the age old adage has come alive for the airlines: ‘Travel light, if you must’; not the lean-and-hungry look but the lean-and-mean look. Heavy weights may be alright in politics; they may be of immense value in industry and bureaucracy. But, they are a big No No for the airlines. Reminds you of the Blue Jeans revolution of the sixties and seventies. Until then, the clothes were tailor-made for you. But, with the advent of Blue Jeans it was one-size-fits-all and you had to re-shape yourself to fit into those jeans. They came up with ‘ideal figure’ (Twiggy) and you had no choice but to be ideal.
Similarly, GoAir, for example, has given NoGoAir sign to its male stewards since they are generally heavier than their female counterparts. If it was the other way round, by this time Jantar Mantar would have been full of women activists telling the whole world through their middle fingers that the government must take charge of GoAir for showing sexual discrimination. But, men are supposed to take it lying down. Preity Zinta, the promoter of GoAir, for example, first made inroads into the till then men’s world of cricket and is now chucking out men from a traditionally female world.
However, the way the airlines are at it, sky is the limit for traveling light. Anything and everything is chargeable. Very soon we may have little children serving us in the flight in their cute infantile babble, “Uncle, hele iz yore maltini; and aunty, you will like some chicken na?” After all, they weigh the least and the airlines may be able to save a few more crores of rupees by employing them.
Another bright idea that will occur to the airlines is to come up with a dress code for travel. No suits, shoes and ties…in any case you have to remove your jacket, belt and shoes at the Security. So, why wear them at all? The airlines will tout this as a ‘customer friendly’ idea as it results in ‘hassle-free security check’. The airlines tend to gain a few crores per year and it appears that every rupee counts.
I suspect that the airlines will soon come up with another ‘customer friendly’ idea – after all, the customer is the king (Ha ha) as proclaimed by them – which is, to have you visit the gym between check-in and security check. The programme will make you lose a few kilos and the airlines can then squeeze in a few more passengers between the last row and the toilets.
Frequent flyers programme will have additional points for those less than fifty kgs and carrying less than ten kgs of check-in baggage and/or nil cabin baggage.
The very first announcement after you board will be, “Ladies and gentlemen, in order to cut down on unnecessary weighty items in the aircraft, we have done away with in-flight magazines, newspapers and instructions cards for wearing the life jackets. You have ten minutes to download these on your mobile phones by accessing www.GoAir.Wecareforguests site. You may not be able to use your mobiles during the flight as these interfere with the navigation systems.”
What about those who used to carry various kinds of foot-wear: Jogging shoes, sandals, brown shoes to go with brown clothing, black with black, and just one extra pair just in case required. Well, research is on to come up with new modular footwear that can change over from chappals to party-wear by pressing a few light-weight buttons.
Another idea that the airlines are working on is to give all passengers, male or female, close hair-cuts (appropriately called crew-cuts) prior to take-off. This too will be a customer friendly (airlines are committed to be customer-friendly all the way) idea since the airlines will offer to share half the cost of haircut with you at merely Rupees Five Hundred a hair-cut (Frequent Light-weight Flyers will be given such crew-cuts free).
And finally back to the male stewards of flights who have been told it is NoGoAir for them; they might actually have the last laugh when the air-hostesses are told – in the same fashion as instructions from Badminton Association of India last year to female players – to wear as little clothing as possible. At last the male passengers will then say, “Finally, you have come up with a real customer-friendly idea.”
Had a good laugh!
Thank you Anil