It was the best of times and the worst of times for the airline industry last week with Air New Zealand announcing that it had more than doubled its half yearly profit compared to last year and then having to admit that one of its overworked pilots fell asleep at the wheel twice on a long haul flight. Meanwhile Jetstar, already plagued with problems involving well-publicised passenger dissatisfaction, refused to change the bookings for the Murawai beach shark victims mum so she could travel from Wellington to Auckland to be with her family. This must surely leave an opening for a genuine no-frills airline to challenge the existing carriers.
Asian entrepreneurs seem adept at producing cut-price retail outlets so what if a Two Dollar Shop or Uncle Bills decides to spread it wings so to speak and moved into the domestic airline business? I imagine an on board announcement for such an enterprise might sound something like this:
“This is the captain speaking. Welcome to Uncle Bills flight 486 from Auckland to Wellington. This is the inaugural flight of our no frills airline and we trust you will enjoy your journey with us this morning.
The first officer on the flight deck with me this morning is Cindy Johnson. Ms Johnson is not licensed to fly, in fact up until two days ago she was working on the checkout counter at one of our retail outlets, but we’ve put her through a crash course so that she can do her best to take over the controls in the case of an emergency.
I will be showing her a thing or two on the trip down to Wellington.
With our incredibly cheap fare regime you will appreciate that we have had to make some radical changes to the way in which we run the company compared to our overpriced competitors.
To double the 737’s passenger numbers we have removed the seats and you will notice that we have installed hand straps hanging from the ceiling, like the old trams.
We have also had to cut some of the other facilities and services that we have always deemed to be unnecessary extras anyway. Luxury items such as a navigation system, air traffic control personnel, radar and maintenance.
To burn less fuel we will be flying at an altitude of around 40,000 feet. Unfortunately we cannot afford to pressurise the cabins so if your ears start to bleed you will have to stuff them with cotton wool. You will find some of this in plastic bags sitting in what’s left of the overhead lockers.
There will be no safety instructions given either. With no seats we don’t have anything to store the lifejackets under so we sold them, along with our life rafts, to the surf lifesaving team at Piha.
Not that these presentations were of any real value anyway. 99 per cent of our flights take place over terra firma and 95 per cent of the world’s airline crashes to date have all occurred on land. No one has yet found a viable use for lifejackets in these circumstances.
Even if we did go out to sea to ditch, extensive research has shown that a fully laden 737 will sink in about two seconds flat, so there never was a snowballs chance of you ever getting out and scrambling to safety no matter how many in-flight safety demonstrations we gave you.
Without any navigational aids we will need to follow the state highway down to Wellington, probably turning left at the Bombay Hills and then following the route to Matamata and Tirau in an effort to avoid heavy traffic flows coming up the other way.
We may also hang a left at Vinegar Hill, fly through to the Wairarapa and weave our way through the Rimutaka ranges. I understand there is low cloud over Wellington so if you recognise some landmarks as we approach the Capital would you please let us know so we can see if we can work out where the airport is.
Now we appreciate that with one of your hands holding on to the ceiling straps, reading will be difficult, but we do have some periodicals on board for your amusement. You will notice that these are almost exclusively Penthouse or Playboy. This is an integral part of our security system. New Zealand First MP Richard Prosser has assured us that all hijackings are performed by Muslim men and as Muslim men are forbidden to view the naked female form they will be discouraged from flying with Uncle Bill.
On the other hand New Zealand businessmen will be queuing up once they get wind of our new magazine policy, so it’s a win-win situation for the airline.
There is of course no food or drink service on this flight. However we bought the aircraft from a bankrupt airline in America’s Deep South and to our surprise we’ve just discovered that the cocktail cabinet on the flight deck is stocked to the hilt with 12-year-old bourbon.
Cindy had the presence of mind to bring a couple of cocktail glasses with her this morning and she and I have been sampling the wares while I’ve tried to get these darn motors to fire.
Cheers!
So sit back and …oops… I mean shtand up and relaxsh and enjshoy the flight.
And shank you for flying wish Uncle Bill’sh Airlines.”
