Pillow Talk, Airline-Style

The tail section of a JetBlue Airbus 320 passes the window of a gate on Concourse A at Denver International Airport on Saturday, June 9, 2007. In the latest example of an airline charging a fee for a previously free in-flight service as it tries to restore profitability in the face of high fuel prices, JetBlue Airways Corp. has started selling passengers pillows and blankets instead of providing the items free and recycling them after each flight. Credit: AP Photo/David Zalubowski

It’s getting almost comical the way revenue-hungry airlines are justifying all the new fees and surcharges they are laying on travelers in lieu of charging realistic fares.

The latest airborne folly is the $7 fee that JetBlue Airways has started charging passengers on flights of more than two hours for a pillow and blanket — items that the airline passed out free from its first flight back in 2000 until this week.

But this is a good thing, we're told. JetBlue isn’t charging extra because it wants to make money — perish the thought. The airline is hawking pillows and blankets because the old-school, recycled pillows and blankets it gave out free for years could be dirty. However, the new, improved amenities are made with cool, 21st-century technology, to screen out disease-carrying microbes. It’s a green, clean thing.

Passengers who fork over their seven bucks can keep what JetBlue has dubbed a “take-home travel kit" and use the items again. Announcing the change, the airline said it is partnering with a manufacturer “devoted to improving the health of the sleep environment."

Recycling — it’s so 20th-century.

To be fair to JetBlue, the New York discount carrier is a generally well-regarded airline that brought some style to the usually no-frills low-cost-carrier world by introducing leather seats, in-flight live television and other creature comforts. When a service meltdown during ice storms in 2006 resulted in horrendous delays on the tarmac, founder and CEO David Neeleman resigned and JetBlue introduced a passengers' bill of rights.

Nevertheless, candor is called for in this latest version of pillow talk: namely, acknowledgment that new fees are prompted not out of concern for the health of air travelers but the health of airlines.

JetBlue is charging for amenities because, like most airlines, it is losing money. A few dollars here, a few dollars there, the thinking goes, and new revenue streams will gush forth — and airlines awash in money will return to fiscal health.

The dilemma of the airlines is real, driven chiefly by the high price of fuel. Prices have swung in recent weeks from a high of nearly $150 for a barrel of crude oil to a low of about $120. All told, the price of jet fuel is up 71 percent from a year ago, according to the International Air Transport Association. If prices stay that high, IATA estimates that the world’s carriers will lose some $6 billion this year.

Hence, the cascade of new charges, levied by a wide variety of carriers, for pillows, blankets, cups of coffee and tea, bottled water, extra leg room, checking a bag, checking a second bag and so on.

The fees — and the gamesmanship to make travelers believe it’s all for their benefit — will continue until airlines charge realistic fares. Most industry analysts think fares need to rise 20 percent for the airlines to make money. Will we like it? No. But it’s a bit less painful than being told fairy tales to put us to sleep on pillows we’re suddenly paying extra for.

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