DanMargarita.com

As if the terrorist attacks of 9-11-01 didn’t make air travel more of a hassle for you, the resulting sky-rocketing (pardon the pun) fuel prices are going to make it even more expensive for you.

Several airlines have announced that in an effort to combat rising fuel prices, they will be charging for amenities that had always been included in the fare. For instance, a window or aisle seat may be $5 extra. They don’t mention whether that includes the window that overlooks the wing. Who’d pay extra for that?

Extra leg room will cost you $10. If you are a tall person, you’re screwed. On the other hand, this could be one of the few times when a person will be glad to be short.

Next month, Jet Blue will charge for a pillow and a blanket. It seems to me, people will just be more likely bring a light jacket or sweater with them. Now if they threw in a hooker with the blanket and pillow, you might have a marketing bonanza on your hands.

Perhaps the airlines can be more specific: a pillow is $5 but if you want it deloused, that’s $10.

There are infinite possibilities to gouge passengers. If you put down your tray table, that’s $5. If you recline your chair, that’s $10. If you want to have a flotation device, that’s $20. Of course, this could benefit the passengers who tend to be smart shoppers. You might check to see if you’re flying over land the whole trip and if so, skip the flotation device and save a few bucks.

Is your flight a short one? Why not save money by opting to stand the whole way? Certain planes could be outfitted with straps like a subway train.

Once we are in the air, we are essentially a captive audience and I suppose we’d willingly pay whatever it takes to touchdown safely.

“Good afternoon, passengers. This is your Captain speaking. If you want me to land this plane safely, please pass up all your money and credit cards to the cabin. Hey, I’ve got a parachute. It doesn’t matter to me.”

We’ve known that oil is a limited commodity for over 30 years now and that at some point, we could be held hostage by the oil producing nations of the world (OPEC). Yet, we’ve made little progress in weaning ourselves off of oil in all this time. I suggest that we don’t even need fuel to fly aircraft, which has been proven for years. If all of our aircraft were gliders, this would solve many problems. Sure, we would need to construct unbelievably large rubber bands to propel them, especially on trans-Atlantic flights, but I have faith in American ingenuity.

There’s always the more risky aircraft made of giant paper airplanes, but my experience with them is that they fly uncontrollably in a circle for three seconds and crash into the teachers desk.

Anyway, paper airplanes would just wind up doing more to delete the rainforests.