Protest airline dehydration?

[steuard]

Kim and I took US Airways to and from Nebraska for the holidays. US Air, as you may know, has decided to charge passengers for non-alcoholic drinks during the flight, including water. I have no problem with them charging for soft drinks and juice, but given the risk of dehydration during air travel I think it's irresponsible not to at least provide plain water for free. (Kim fortunately knew about this in advance, so we brought a water bottle of our own.)

On our flight home, I thought of an interesting way to protest this policy. The airline always explains that the in-flight magazine is yours to keep, but almost no one does. What if passengers who don't like the "pay to drink" policy decided to take them home as souvenirs? (Or for immediate recycling. Or as burnt offerings. Or...) It's easy to do, and I'm sure it would cost the airline more than drinking water.

Like most boycotts or protests it would be pointless to do alone, but I think it could make a point if enough people publicly participated. Is this a reasonable idea? And if so, what's the right way to publicize it?

Comments

[zathrus.livejournal.com]

It sounds reasonable to me. (Also reasonable would be not flying US Air, but I realize that in going tyo Nebraska, you may not have many options.) As for publicity... Putting the suggestion on your webpage/blog/etc. is a start. Next step would likely be emailing some popular bloggers about the idea (no idea which ones those would be, but I bet there are a bunch of travel-related blogs that might pick it up). Also a good idea would be letters to the editors of any/all newspapers you can think of, or emails to the appropriate journalists if you feel like doing more research.

Of course, if you could get your hands on US Air's email/mailing list, that'd reach exactly your intended audience very well, but the chances that you could do that legally are likely not worth contemplating.

Newt