US Airways has decided that the $.03 per package that they were spending on your snack is just too much money! They’re officially discontinuing free snacks for coach passengers as of June 1st.
US Airways’ management has always been unapologetic about the grossness of US Airways’ free snacks. As they told employees who requested better tasting pretzels:
“We’ve worked with our purchasing team,” management explained, “to bring in many companies to compete on our main cabin tidbit item (pretzels). To date, no one has been able to match our current cost, about 3 cents per package.”
US Airways Ends Free Snacks For Passengers [Bizjournals](Thanks, Peetah!)
(Photo: Zonaphoto )
PREVIOUSLY: Employees May Hate US Airways More Than Their Customers Do
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I usually bring my own snacks on a plane, been doing it since I started packing my own carry-on bag because I wanted candy on the plane. Now I pack them because paying $5 for a blue snack box with some fake cheese and a slimjim just isn’t my idea of a good time. Now if I could just bring my damn water bottle on the plane, I’d be happy. I was flying back from Vegas at one point, and had a little stubby water bottle buried in a backpack I forgot about (it’s the damn desert, I had water stashed everywhere), I’d say it had 110ml if I remembered correctly.. the security guard at the scanner looked like I was carrying a bomb. He called like 5 people over, and they gingerly took my bag and emptied everything out of it. I thought they were going to shoot me, because I had some damn water.
Somehow, international airlines have managed to continue offering competitive prices, great service, included meals and food, snacks, “wings” pins for kids, free headphones for the flight duration.. why must our domestic carriers suck so much?
I always use my “get to airport 2 hours early” time to pick up a few amenities from the airport before boarding, such as a litre of water and maybe a fastfood burger for later. Its more convenient to have my own water than bother the waitstaff for 8 oz bottles, and the burger is a much better deal than $7 for a partially thawed tv dinner.
Unfortunately, until American consumers stop making every purchase decision based upon cost we will see more and more of these types of decisions. Seriously, why should USAir, Delta or whoever spend the $ on snacks? It’s not like any one decides to fly their airline because a $0.03 bag of pretzels is included.
This is a perfect example of the “Wal-Mart” economy – Everyone makes their decisions based upon cost, at the expense of service and then complains about how lousy the service is. It’s getting harder and harder to find a corner hardware store because everyone buys from Wal-Mart or Home Depot to save a few cents. Never mind the helpful advice you always get from the corner store. The same holds true in the airline industry. If the airlines knew that providing extras could sell more tickets at a higher price they would do it. However, the reality is something different.
Airlines have mis-managed themselves into this corner and until our govt. grows the seeds to allow a couple of major carriers to fail, we’ll continue to hear about fuel-surcharges, luggage fees, etc. As soon as enough of them fail, new competitors will emerge an take up the slack of those lost flights, hopefully with new ideas on how to compete in this industry. It’s pretty obvious the current hub and spoke system is NOT the best solution to air travel, but the current airlines have so much invested in it that none of them are willing to walk away from the arrangement.
Time to start packing MREs with me when I fly.
When I drove my car to Texas from Chicago two weeks ago I brought all the snacks I wanted and had plenty of bottled water and sodas for the road. I could pull over anytime I wanted and use the bathroom without squeezing down a horrible little aisle. I could listen to my music as loud as I wanted. I could leave whenever I wanted and arrived on my own schedule and didn’t have to rent a car at my destination.
I might never fly within the USA again.
WTF? I hate US Airways, but not as much as American, which is not as much as United.
On one hand, do we really need to be fed on what’s (hopefully) only a few hours of flight at most??
On the other hand, is it really going to kill us to buy a packet of peanuts?? Assuming it can get by the super-duper security TSA *rme*.
Man. I’m so glad I’ve only flown twice in 5 years!
@boss_lady:
Yep! It was actually 1987, AA eliminated 1 olive from each 1st class salad and saved $44,000. When word got out, there was a mini-boycott out of spite. Since over 50 pax mailed in copies of tickets on other airlines to show their discontent, AA made a big deal about how they are INCREASING the olive count by 2, for a net gain of 1. For a short bit of time, Delta poked fun at them by having an olive platter for F/J int’l pax featuring various types of olives!
@ThinkerTDM:
Doug Parker, the CEO, made $550,000 last year, and DECLINED a bonus
Mark Everson, former CEO of the Red Cross, had an annual salary of $651,957.
This also saves them money on fuel because all those pretzels add a lot of weight.
I like being able to fly places. I applaud airlines that are trying to save money by getting rid of things that really aren’t a big deal to do without (like pretzels) instead of charging me $700/ticket or going out of business completely. Go US Airways!
I always pack my own lunch when traveling. A couple small bags of trail mix for snacking, some double-wrapped sandwiches, and a couple bottles or cans of soda from inside the security zone. I haven’t relied on an airline snack in two decades…
Has anyone looked into designing more fuel efficient jets and planes?
If the car industry can make a car that expends nothing but water, why can’t airlines?
Might keep them from having to cut silly things like snacks.
Jeez.
Wasn’t the snack to THEIR benefit? Keeping passengers from being cranky and so forth?