This is a tale of two airlines with an utterly upoosing opinion on cash/cashless existence.
The first is RyanAir, the budget airline that we all love to hate to use, and their CEO announcing that they are seriously ‘contemplating’ charging their customers to use the facilities by installing a coin-operated system on the doors of the loos.
Whilst this announcement has been met by obvious and expected public outcry and no doubt intentionally ensuring ‘RyanAir’ is the keyword of every household’s evening meal for a while; this is a bit of a concern for me.
I am planning on venturing to Berlin for a weekend with friends toward the end of spring and now I’m not just looking out for the cheapest flights available, I’m looking out for flights that aren’t coin operated!
RyanAir’s announcement might be hot air but the sheer thought of such a backward step seems so ridiculous to me. Why would an airliner actively encourage the use of cash aboard their fleet? Money is very much nationally regional (with exception of the Euro) whilst card and electronic transactions are very much international and (for the most part) generic.
Whether the tight-fisted board of executives decide to run with this preposterous plan or not I, for one, might have to start planning my international travel according to how long I can ‘hold it in’ for. When I began this cashless adventure I never imagined I would encounter this hurdle.
Thank you, RyanAir for keeping me on my toes… and my legs tightly crossed.
The second airline on my radar is American Airlines – for purely good reasons! Although the news might be slightly dated, I am yet to report on the wonderful news that they have outlawed cash transactions onboard their domestic and Canadian flights.
Lauri Curtis, American’s Vice President of Onboard Service says, “On these flights, American will only accept major credit cards or debit cards for onboard purchases such as headsets, fresh light meals, snacks and alcoholic beverages.”
“Moving to a cashless cabin allows us to streamline the inflight sales process for both our customers and flight attendants.”
Their planned transition will be fully launched by the summer and following quickly on their heals is United Airlines who have announced the imminent arrival of their ‘EasyPay’ system, allowing passengers to pay for their purchases with all major plastic.
Always one for light entertainment; I think this video of an American Airlines inflight attendant adding a little twist to the rigmarol of the preflight attendant highlights the stark difference between the American and British attitudes toward a lot of things…
Rules are there to be broken and cash is there to be forgotten.
