Flexible Thinking Forum

The furore in the news over British Airways implementing a charge of up to £60 for choosing your seat on a flight has overlooked two key issues.

The first, is one very close to home to me. I do a lot of travelling, particularly through work.

Now, people who know me will hopefully vouch that I am a very easy-going guy. It takes a lot to get me infuriated. Yet most times I’m on a flight this issue annoys me: emergency exit seats should only be occupied by people over 6 feet tall.

Being 6’5” puts me in this category, so yes it is self-interest.

But seeing people of, how do I describe, a diminutive stature occupying these seats makes me angry.

For reasons of economics the longer haul the flight, the shorter the legroom. It bloody hurts when the chair in front is suddenly tilted back and crushes your knee. I am convinced air hostesses have a league competition for the most times they can bang their trolleys into a long-legged passenger, who for survival of their knees and just basic comfort, has their leg in the aisle.

So, why not go business or executive class you might say. Well, if it is coming out of your pocket you are far from inclined to pay the astronomical difference in price for the privilege of basic legroom.

It also brings out the communal interest value I have. If I see someone who is standing on a train or tube and who has greater need than me of the seat, I give him or her my seat.

Inevitably, on a plane load of people there will be tall people who would value the seat and has a greater need than anyone under 6 feet. So, some basic human decency should be the order of the day.

Maybe, we need to create a taboo, a new meme stigmatising people under 6 feet occupying emergency exit seats. We need to create a sticky name label for these people (other than ‘selfish, self-centred, shortish so-and-so’; I do have lots of friends under 6 feet by the way.)

Any suggestions for a new name for this clear, anti social behaviour, and a clear case of heightism, are welcome.

The second dimension to the British Airways story is that it is yet another example of ‘hidden pricing’ or what I call ‘headline-salami pricing’: you have a headline price that looks appealing on on-line searching and comparison sites. But then you seek to squeeze out what the consumer is prepared to pay in addition, by the equivalent of salami slicing the product.

Ryanair is an outstanding example of this; you have the cheap headline price, then the taxes, then the cost of any bag, then the cost of booking in, plus the charge for the credit card, then the extra for priority boarding. While the cost of using the toilet on the Ryanair plane is an urban myth, they are missing out on charging for not buying a sandwich or drink, or maybe charging for the life jacket in an emergency!

Headline-salami pricing is sadly a phenomenon of 21st century marketing. See it being applied in situations as diverse as dry cleaning (5p for the coat hanger please), the driving lesson (extra quid for the home pick up, thank you) and the bookshop (a £1 to browse please, which is deductable from your purchase.)